The sewing machine is a small matter to Him who clothes the lilies of the field. You are in a hurry, but faith has a quicker sight than your anxieties, it travels to the Throne before your fears can frame a word. Yet why are you so troubled about this piece of metal and bobbins? Are you not greater than a sparrow, and shall not your Father feed you? The real need this morning is not the swift selling of a machine, but the swiftening of your soul to see Jesus. You ask for money as if it were your keeper, but only the pierced hand can keep you safe.
You say the money is important, yet I tell you that the heart which rests upon a crumb of silver leans upon a splinter. Be quick about your business, certainly, for the Master is on the road and the rattling of His chariot wheels is heard. But do not imagine that a successful sale will do for you what only a sufficient Savior can accomplish. You need not the wagon of earthly supply to carry your altar, trust and love are the only paraphernalia required. If the machine sells, bless Him. If it does not, bless Him still, for the waiting time is meant to open your eyes. You are like the blind man who saw men as trees walking, you need the second touch of grace to see provision clearly in the Provider, not in the provision itself.
You plead for safety. What do you think has kept you safe until this very hour? Your own wit? The locks on your door? The kindness of the neighborhood? If the Lord left you, you would need no devil to destroy you, you would prove a devil to yourself. There is a far deeper peril than an empty purse or a delayed buyer. The soul that clings to temporal comforts walks in a darkness more profound without the sympathy and help of deliberate faith. Your safety is not in a quick transaction but in the eternal transaction of the cross, where Christโs poverty purchased your riches. Since He is rich while you are poor, what can you need beside? The lion of anxiety crouches at your doorstep, but he is a chained beast.
You imagine that your prayer would be more acceptable if you could frame it with less anguish and more composure. Away with such nonsense! You want to make yourself better before you believe in Jesus? That is to elbow Christ out of His place. He does not need a neater request; He hears the cracked voice and the trembling plea. You have not seen Him, and that is why you tremble. But love realizes Christ more truly than any vision of the eyes. The very thought of Him, of His agony for you when you were an enemy, constrains you to love Him, and loving Him, you possess Him, and possessing Him, you possess all. Fold up your sewing work and look a while upon the pierced hands. There you will find both your provision and your protector, bought with blood that needs no replenishment.
The hour will come when you shall sing the Lordโs song by Babelโs stream, for the land is not strange where He is. You ask for safety; I bid you plunge into the cleft of the Rock, where no thunder of temporal loss can shake the soulโs estate. The highest wisdom now is to think of yourself in your standing towards God. The sewing machine will do you no eternal hurt if it gathers dust for a fortnight. But to miss Christ in the tempest of this trifling care, that would be a loss indeed. Let the quick sale come if it be His will, but let the quicker sight of faith come more surely, for then you shall see the glory of God in the land of the living, even in your pinched circumstances. Be still, and know that he who does not have faith enough to be kept in the dark does not yet see clearly.