The Depressed Servant.

H. C. Anstey.

Christian Friend vol. 15, 1888, p. 182.

God is not unaffected by this condition. He has His eye upon His servant, and will care for him. One of the lessons of the way is to get hold of how God can stoop, and delights to stoop, to arrange the little things for His servants. Alas! how distrust of the One whom we serve - distrust of the interests of His heart in us and in His people - thrusts its way oftentimes before the soul. Who would have thought of the blessed God preparing a cake, baking it, filling the cruse, and then sending His angel to that poor, weary, depressed servant of His, to tell him of what He had ready for him! Such is the heart of Him whom we serve. And Elijah eats and sleeps, and again is aroused by the angelic watcher to eat yet again. (How God lingers near us, so to speak.) "And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee."

Oh, to be able to detect the "cake baken on the coals." There it is preparing, when the poor weary heart only requests "for himself that he might die." Not yet Elijah, nor at all. The "chariot of fire, and horses of fire," are HIS way for thee.

"The journey is too great for thee." He who cares for us has provided the sustenance. He who alone knows the need of the way meets it. Be assured there is the "cake baken on the coals" and the cruse of water for the depressed servant, and as we partake we gain strength. Cannot the servant who reads this bear witness? And so it ever is. "And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God."

H. C. A.