The weight of pressing need lies heavy upon your heart, and the fear of want is a sharp thorn. Yet in this very urgency, see your need of the Holy Spirit, who alone can apply the promises of God to your soul and give you peace that passes understanding. The outward trial is but the index of an inward dependence; do not look merely at the bills and the empty hand, but look to Him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Your conscious need is meant to drive you to the throne of grace, for the more urgent our necessity, the more earnestly we seek the Lord who alone can supply.
Remember the patriarch Job. In all his losses, he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. He tore his mantle, shaved his head, fell upon the ground, and worshipped. Weeping is allowed, and the rending of the heart in anxious care is no sin if it bows before the Almighty. Yet take heed that you do not in your mourning charge God with unkindness. He who gave His own Son for you will not withhold any good thing. Your present trial has a boundary set by infinite wisdom; the night will not last forever. The Lord turned again the captivity of Job, and if you trust in Him, your deliverance shall be swift in its season.
I would have you note, too, that Job’s own release came when he prayed for his friends. Those who had spoken harshly, who had misunderstood him, he prayed for them. In the midst of your own anxiety, take up the mighty weapon of intercession. Bring before the throne the needs of others, even those who have troubled you, and you may find your own burden lightened. Sympathy with the poor of heart, even when you are poor in pocket, opens the channel of divine compassion. Did not Job weep for those in trouble? Let your own need make you tender, and from that tenderness let prayer arise.
It may be that this trial is permitted to humble our pride. Should it be according to your mind? We would arrange our lives with constant prosperity, but our Father knows what temptations riches bring. If things were left to our choosing, we might be destroyed by our own desires. Submit, then, to His ordering. He is too wise to err, too good to be unkind. Job learned to trust a God who seemed to slay him, crying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Can you not trust Him for bread and raiment? The lower springs of earthly supply shall not fail while you are in the wilderness, for He who fed Elijah by the brook and the ravens still cares for His own.
I do not say that your suffering is the mark of hidden sin, as Job’s comforters falsely charged; yet it is always well to search the heart. Is there any neglect of the Word? Is prayer grown formal? Have you been gathering the thoughts of others and not thinking for yourself before the Lord? If so, return to the fresh oil of communion. But if you can, by grace, say that you have walked uprightly, then stand firm and see the salvation of God. Your extremity is His opportunity. Lay your request before Him with thanksgiving, and then go forth to seek the employment He will provide, trusting that in the meantime He will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.