A vessel has no command of the wind, nor can you ordain the clouds. How go the ships? They must go according to the wind, they cannot make headway without favoring gales. If our port is Heaven, there is no getting there except by the blessed Spirit's blowing upon us. He blows where He wishes, and we need that He should breathe upon us. The same Hand that governs the seas governs the rain, and the wind, and the storm. Are you no more than a log on the water? I should not like to be a passenger in a vessel which had no course marked out on the chart, no pilot at the wheel. Surely, you are setting your heart upon a small matter of weather as though all your joy hung upon a dry path. That is a poor course to steer.
Is there any ocean upon which a ship can sail where it shall be quite sure that no storms will arise? Where there is sea, there may be storms. The saints of God confessed that theirs was a troublous way; you need not suppose you are out of the road because your way is full of difficulty. Your fretting over the rain, mark this, is like pouring water out of bottomless buckets. No man among us can keep alive his own soul, much less command the heavens. What have you done with the assurance that Christ is at the helm? Suppose the pilot cries out to the engineer, “Ease her!” and the captain countermands the order, the pilot is evidently not trusted, and if the vessel runs ashore, it will be no fault of his. So is it with regard to our Lord. Are you trusting Him to order the seasons as He sees fit, or only if He grants your three days of dry ground?
Unbelief will be no help to you. Your faith has already saved you, what more do you need? If you have the assurance within your own soul that you are saved, do not go anywhere or do anything to damage that assurance by peevish complaints against Providence. I know of no supposable dangers, no imaginable troubles, no conceivable difficulties through which, and out of which, and beyond which this text will not carry us if by faith we grasp it: “He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” That promise holds firm in the heavy rain as in the sunshine. We cannot feed upon that which is high above and out of our sight, but on the plain Word we can rest.
Consider Job: if I sink in deep mire where there is no standing, I will go down with my eyes towards the hills from where comes my help. To hold out till you reach the winning post is the great point. Perseverance is as necessary as conversion. You not only need grace to begin with, but grace with which to live. Go in peace. “Oh, but tomorrow I have to go out among ungodly men.” Never mind, go in peace. Do not go among them disturbed and fluttered, but sing softly to yourself, “My heart is resting, O my God!” Go in peace. Your frantic pleas rise from a hearth where the fire has gone low. Just as the warmth is inside, so the melting will be outside. Seek the Spirit’s flame within, and the outward circumstances will lose their tyranny over your soul. The Lord may send rain, or He may restrain it, either way, He has said, “Never, no never, no never forsake!”