A Devotion from Maclaren

“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psa. 23:4.)

At my father’s house in the country there is a little closet in the chimney corner where are kept

the canes and walking-sticks of several generations of our family. In my visits to the old house,

when my father and I are going out for a walk, we often go to the cane closet, and pick out our

sticks to suit the fancy of the occasion. In this I have frequently been reminded that the Word

of God is a staff.

During the war, when the season of discouragement and impending danger was upon us,

the verse, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord,” was a

staff to walk with many dark days.

When death took away our child and left us almost heartbroken, I found another staff in the

promise that “weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

When in impaired health, I was exiled for a year, not knowing whether I should be

permitted to return to my home and work again, I took with me this staff which never failed,

“He knoweth the thoughts that he thinketh toward me, thoughts of peace and not of evil.”

In times of special danger or doubt, when human judgment has seemed to be set at naught,

I have found it easy to go forward with this staff, “In quietness and confidence shall be your

strength.” And in emergencies, when there has seemed to be no adequate time for deliberation

or for action, I have never found that this staff has failed me, “He that believeth shall not make

haste.”—Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, in The Outlook.

“I had never known,” said Martin Luther’s wife, “what such and such things meant, in such

and such psalms, such complaints and workings of spirit; I had never understood the practice of

Christian duties, had not God brought me under some affliction.” It is very true that God’s rod is

as the schoolmaster’s pointer to the child, pointing out the letter, that he may the better take

notice of it; thus He pointeth out to us many good lessons which we should never otherwise

have learned.