Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: January 29

"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy stakes" ~ Isaiah 54:2

If you have never suffered the true meaning of this verse, it is not completely yours. I [Eugenia Price, the author] did not use the word "suffered" here without some thought before I used it. All of God's written-down Word to us in the Holy Bible must be taken by faith for our individual use. But some passages only come by the use of a faith that holds through suffering. "Enlarge the place of thy tent" is clearly understood by anyone who has opened the door at three a.m. to a disheveled, self pitying alcoholic. Anyone who is still "sitting up" with the same "visitor" pouring black coffee down him or her at nine a.m. the next morning, listening for the fourth time to "how God has failed by not knocking the bottle out of his or her hand the night before, " knows that it also involves suffering to "let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations." Not alone alcoholics. So with anyone who blesses your life by causing you to suffer this verse into the very fibre of your being! So with the cheating husband and the critical friend and the child who is annoyed when your money is all gone. So with the neurotic daughter of the neurotic mother who calls and repeats her side of the story, already well-memorized from mother's version. And in it all God is speaking to us gently, clearly...

"... Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ... fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; ... spare not ... spare not."