Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation January 24

”O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” ~ Isaiah 48:18

God will lead us in the way that we should go and in the way He knows is the only way along which we will benefit. “I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit …” God leads us as He does, not to be hard. Not to prove His power over us. Not to make our lives miserable. Not to frustrate us. He leads as He leads because He knows us exactly as we are. He knows us as we are now, and what went before in your life and in mine. Knows us as we are now and what lies ahead too. God knows. And only God knows fully. And so He leads us as He leads not only from wisdom, but from love. If what He is asking you to do right now as you read these words seems too hard (as something He is asking of me as I write these words seems “too hard”) by His grace, we can both remember who He is. We can remember that the same Heart that reminds throughout the Old Testament that “I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit” is the very same Heart that ached in the human breast of the Lord Jesus as He looked out over Jerusalem just before they killed him and sobbed: “… how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!” “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river…” But it is not too late. Even if you have fallen, it is not too late.

“… him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out …. Come unto me …”