Oswald Chambers: Joy - Strength In The LordSample

At the outset of the Christian career the blessing of God is so sensible, so marked by feeling, that the Christian walks more by sight than by faith, God’s caressings seem to be upon him. But there comes a time in the life of the disciple when God withdraws these comforts, when joy in God is not what it used to be, when His presence is not so sweet, and when a strange dull grey (if one might say so) seems to fall over the spiritual life.

For a time the soul gets into deep darkness; then he begins to realize that God is but teaching him the difference between walking in the light of blessings and entering into the experience of the Divine beatitudes; or, to put it more simply, God is taking the soul out of the realm of religious feeling and emotion into the realm of faith.

Reflection Question: In what ways is God teaching me to walk in the heavenly light of the Divine beatitudes rather than in the artificial light of earthly blessings?

Quotation taken from God’s Workmanship, © Discovery House Publishers