Rise with Christ

"The Child is set for the . . . rising again of many." Luke 2:34

You can rise with Christ, particularly when your hopes are lowest and when you understand His ways, though not your ways, are always the best. Sir Henry M. Stanley, searching for Livingstone in the heart of Africa, had to be led through a siege of tropical fevers that kept his temperature constantly at 105 degrees before his hardened attitude toward life turned to the joy of his salvation. His sick-bed became his school for Christ, and having read the warnings and promises of Scripture, he wrote: "I flung myself on my knees and poured out my soul utterly in secret prayer to Him from whom I had been so long estranged, to Him who had led me here mysteriously into Africa, there to reveal Himself and His will." Perhaps God has been leading some of you through the jungles of life, through the wastes of illness and loneliness, to have you find Christ with Him this uplifting grace which Simeon proclaimed as his voice rang through the Temple, "This Child is set for the . . . rising again of many." - Walter A. Maier

Lonely! The very word can start the tears
And chill the heart as with the sun's eclipse;
It uses to fall so sadly from my lips,
It used to sound so mournful to my ears.

Then, like Naomi in an alien land,
I found the One who loved and guided her;
And, like Elijah by the juniper,
I tasted meat and drink from God's own hand.

Lonely? The knell fades on the brightening air,
And melts into a happy carillon.
Is the road rough? I have a Friend to share
Its brave adventure till the journey's done.
Come, lonely heart, will you not join us there?
Who walk with Christ can never walk alone.

Ruby Weyburn Tobias