rivers are sure.

MAY The Tenth

_GOD'S USE OF MEN_

"_I have surely seen the affliction of My people ...
come now, therefore, I will send thee._"
--EXODUS iii. 1-14.

Does that seem a weak ending to a powerful beginning? The Lord God looks
upon terrible affliction and He sends a weak man to deal with it. Could He
not have sent fire from heaven? Could He not have rent the heavens and
sent His ministers of calamity and disasters? Why choose a man when the
arch-angel Gabriel stands ready at obedience?

This is the way of the Lord. He uses human means to divine ends. He works
through man to the emancipation of men. He pours His strength into a worm,
and it becomes "an instrument with teeth." He stiffens a frail reed and it
becomes as an iron pillar.

And this mighty God will use thee and me. On every side there are Egypts
where affliction abounds, there are homes where ignorance breeds, there
are workshops where tyranny reigns, there are lands where oppression is
rampant. "Come now, therefore, I will send thee." Thus saith the Lord, and
He who gives the command will also give the equipment.

MAY The Eleventh

_BUT----!_

"_And Moses answered and said, But_----"
--EXODUS iv. 1-9.

We know that "but." God has heard it from our lips a thousand times. It is
the response of unbelief to the divine call. It is the reply of fear to
the divine command. It is the suggestion that the resources are
inadequate. It is a hint that God may not have looked all round. He has
overlooked something which our own eyes have seen. The human "buts" in the
Scriptural stories make an appalling record.

"Lord, I will follow Thee, but----" There is something else to be attended
to before discipleship can begin. Obedience is not primary: it must wait
for something else. And so our obedience is not a straight line: it is
crooked and circuitous; it takes the way of by-path meadow instead of the
highway of the Lord. We do not wait upon the Lord's pleasure; we make Him
wait upon ours.

There need be no "buts" in our relationship to the King's will. Everything
has been foreseen. Nothing will take the Lord by surprise. The entire
field has been surveyed, and the preparations are complete. When the Lord
says to thee or me, "I will send thee," every provision has been made for
the appointed task. "I will not fail thee."

MAY The Twelfth

_MOUTH AND MATTER_

"_Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth._"
--EXODUS