Wednesday's Word: Cast Your Bread Upon The Waters

 

"Cast your bread upon the waters for you will find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, yes, even divide it to eight, for you know

not what evil may come upon the earth.

Sunrise At The Shore

Lavallette, New Jersey

Photograph by Bob Cuthbert/Fine Art America

If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth;

and if a tree falls toward the south or toward the north,

in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

He who observes the wind and waits for all conditions

to be favorable will not sow, 

and he who regards the clouds

will not reap.

And you know not what is the way of the wind,

or how the spirit comes to the bones

in the womb of a pregnant woman,

even so you know not the work of God

Who does all.

In the morning, sow your seed,

and in the evening withhold not your hands,

for you know not which shall prosper,

whether this or that,

or whether both alike will be good."

(Ecclesiastes 11:1-6)

"Beloved Christians, you who have been believers for years,
if you begin to live by your frames and feelings..."I do not feel
like praying..." Then is the time when you ought to pray most, for
 you are evidently most in need; but if you keep observing whether
or not you are in a proper frame of mind for prayer, you will not pray.

"I cannot grasp the promises...I should like to enjoy God, and firmly
believe in His Word; but I do not see anything in myself
that can minister to my comfort."

Suppose you do not.  Are you, after all, going to build upon yourself?
Are you trying to find your ground of consolation in your own heart?
If so, you are on the wrong track.

Our hope is not in self, but in Christ; let us go and sow it. Our hope
is in the finished work of Christ; let us go and reap it; for, if we keep
on regarding the wind and the clouds, we shall neither sow or reap.

I think it is a great lesson to learn in spiritual things, to believe in Christ,
and His finished salvation, quite as much when you are down as when
you are up; for Christ is no more Christ on the mountain than He is
in the bottom of the valley, and He is no less Christ in the storm
by midnight than He is in the sunshine of day.

Do not begin to measure your safety by your comfort; but measure it
by the eternal Word of God, which you have believed, and which you
know to be true, and on which you rest; for still here, within the
little world of our own bosom, he that observeth the wind
shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."

An excerpt from the sermon,
"Sowing The Wind, Reaping The Clouds"
(1890)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834-1892)
English Particular Baptist preacher
Revered by many Christians as
"The Prince of Preachers"