Whispers of His Power – FEBRUARY 27

Do you know what it is to go to your Bible desperate for something specially sustaining and reviving?  That was how I opened mine this morning – and this is what I got: Psalm 119.83, I am become like a bottle in the smoke.  I saw that bottle, that dried up old goat-skin hung up in the smoke.  It was exactly what I felt like at that moment and I could not see how it was going to help me at all.

Yet do I not forget Thy statutes.  That ‘yet’ (though not in the Hebrew) suddenly took me to other ‘yets’ and ‘buts’, those great words of faith that swing us round from looking at smoky bottles to look at things eternal (which smoky bottles are not).  First Habakkuk’s dauntless Yet will I rejoice when everything had gone wrong; t hen in the Psalms I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more. ‘Yet’ means ‘increase, continue, carry on’ – in joy and praise.

So let us defy the devil who loves to make us feel smoky, and ‘increase and continue’ in the glorious joy of the Lord that is strength.

oooOOOooo

These words are from ’Whispers of His Power’ a collection of writings that Amy Carmichael wrote for her ‘children’ and others associated with the Dohnavur Fellowship. and are Copyright © The Dohnavur Fellowship 1982

Unless otherwise stated, biblical quotations are from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

The following abbreviations are used to refer to other versions and sources:

BCP:               Book of Common Prayer, the Great Bible of Coverdale

Conybeare:       W. J. Conybeare, The Epistles of Paul (a translation)

Delitzsch:        F. Delitzsch, Notes on Job and the Psalms

Kay:                W. Kay, The Psalms (a translation)

LXX:              The Septuagint

Moffatt:           J. Moffatt, The New Testament: a new translation

Rotherham:      J. B. Rotherham, The Emphasized Bible Revised Version

RV:                 Revised Version

Way:              A. Way, The Letters of St Paul (a translation)

Westcott:        F. Westcott, Notes on the Gospel of St John

Weymouth:      R. F. Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech

Young:            R. Young, A Literal Translation of the Bible

Verses of poetry without quotation marks were written by Amy Carmichael.