The house wherein you sojourned is but a tent for a season, yet the just tenant desires to restore to his landlord his property unhurt. Set your heart, then, to leave no trace of injury, but rather memorials of care, this is right and comely before men, and not unrewarded by Him who sees in secret. Yet let not this duty become a snare of fretting. The Eternal God is our refuge and our resort for everything; in every time of need we have nothing to do but to lift up our voice to Him. He who filled the whale’s belly with Jonah, who wrestled with Jacob till the sinew shrank, can surely make your hands swift and your spirit light for the work before you. Cast yourself into your Lord’s arms, have done with fretting! Have done with anxiety and doubt! Christ is with all His people, and He can comfort, cheer, and gladden, for He has done all that for me and ten thousand times more.
You speak of a bargain, a lower price for the year to come, because another dwelling is cheaper and larger. Be mindful here: act not only justly but kindly to those with whom you deal. Remember you were a bondman in the Egypt of your sin, and the Lord your God redeemed you freely, without price. How can you grip another so tightly by the throat of commerce, when God has set you so freely at liberty? The past is bright with love most free, the present is given us everlasting consolation, and the future is glorified with good hope through grace, all sheer gift, no legal claim, no trace of reward but of Divine favor. If the Landlord of souls so freely grants you the cleansing of His dear Son’s blood, you can afford to trust the landlord of bricks and mortar for whatever rebate seems good. Yet if he prove less yielding than you hope, know that your true Riches are laid up where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and your acceptance is not by man’s smile but by the sweet savor of Christ. God does not cease to observe, but He has a set time to bless; He comes with all His soul most heartily to show favor. He will load you daily with His benefits if you trust His dear Son.
For your brother and the woman who watches over your mother, you ask a certain boon, that they should dwell beside the sea with you, to mutual profit. This is lawful praying, for our God is a home for His people, and whatever care awaits us abroad, we cannot wait to get to the place of His delight. He foresees every possible emergency and has everything ready just in the nick of time. He who made the Covenant with Noah because of the sweet savor of rest, He can open a way for these dear ones to taste the salt air and find refreshment. Only see to it that your zeal be not a dry thing, without communion with God. The more a man enjoys the means of grace in one season, the more he grieves when they seem withdrawn; yet the dew of the Master’s Presence, that unction which is sweet to feel though hard to describe, comes straight out of waiting upon Him. Go out like Noah’s dove, with weary wings, yet fly back to the Ark of His bosom; there is your rest.
My last words are those of the prophet to a man who set his house in order: begin your regrets earlier, while there is time to retrieve the past. Regret not the sands that have run from the glass of your holiday, but rather ask for grace now to do all that is in you for Him who loved you and bought you with His blood. Outside the camp take your place, with Jesus bear the cross of little daily cares, and find them lightened. He who can buy no sweet cane with money can bring time and zeal and effort, and these are precious when laid upon His altar. The harvest of the shore is gathered, the summer in that place is ended; let not the summer of your soul be ended without the sweetness of His nearer love. Go now, pack and clean and travel in the strength of Him who once packed the whole creation into six days and saw that it was very good. And when next you see the sea, let it sing to you of the depths of free grace, wherein your sins are sunk and remembered no more.