The Eternal God, who holds the seven stars in His right hand, is full of power and actively using it for His own. You cry out concerning a creature, and well you may, for the hands that hang down in terror and the knees that tremble belong to those whose affections are entangled. But is the creature to become an idol before Him? The First Commandment is, "You shall have no other gods before Me." The old-fashioned conscience goes up and down, yes and no, right and wrong. Compromise is no principle at all. Your distress is great because your hands have become weak, your knees have become feeble. Why is this? Is it not that the heart hath set its love upon a thing seen, a similitude, instead of turning wholly to the wonder-working Christ of God?
You say, "Guide the hands and keep the creature calm." Yet what saith the Lord? "If I wash you not, you have no part with Me." No nearness to God can save you if you have never been washed by the Lord Jesus! This needle, this stress, this pain of a little animal, these are cart-ropes to bind the soul that knows not how to cast itself upon the invisible God. The stress of the creature is but the symptom. The deep disease is trust in means. No Bible-readings, no sermon-hearings, no, not even prayers, if they are relied upon, can save you! Your reliance must be upon the wonder-working Christ of God. Tell Him all the case, say to Him that you renounce all other hope and trust yourself in His hands. He holds the stars; He holds His people. If you are kept in the right hand of Christ, then you are kept. The creature will be what it will be, but what of your soul?
Consider the ill effect of being thus bound. The heart, enamoured of a passing shadow, says of Christ, "He will not hurt me. He will not destroy me. He will not forget me." And yet Christ has often to lift up His pierced hands and say, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends." You wound Him when your peace depends more upon an IV needle's success than upon the finished work He bought with the blood of His heart. Has He not said, "No man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hands"? Then seek first to be washed, to be cleansed, to have that enormous weight of care lifted not from the cat, but from your own soul. "Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees." And how is this done? Not by the success of a veterinary hand, but by turning to the Lord Jesus, who is beside you, and trusting yourself in His hands.
If thou wilt not be saved from this fret, if thou wilt perish in the stream of anxiety, yet perish clinging to the rock of thy salvation, saying, "No other trust and no other hope have I." The Word of Christ is all edge; it cuts to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. It asks thee: Is the creature thy Hephzibah, thy delight? Or is Christ? He says to thee, "My delight is in her." He would be to thee not merely Baali, Lord and Master, but Ishi, thy Husband, thy Man. No dark suspicions come across the soul that is once enamoured of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if thou art sent into a hospital to lie there, to go upstairs and never to come down, is He not still good? The enormous weight of a soul unyielded is far heavier than any cart-rope thou hast felt. But when thou sayest, "I have no drag behind me now," then the creature's distress shall not shake thee, for thou art kept in His right hand.
You ask for the creature to be kept calm. But the Lord says, "I am a patient, and You, O Lord, are my Physician. I have told You the symptoms of my case. Now will You teach me Your statutes that I may be healed?" The symptoms of thy soul are laid bare: anxiety, fear, a troubled heart over temporal things. The statutes He would teach thee are these: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." No mercy glanced from Jonah’s eye when he thundered, "Yet forty days!" But Christ looks upon thee with pity. He charges thee nothing, does everything gratis, moved only by real pity for thee. Trust the Physician, and then, concerning the lesser things, know that He holds the stars and He holds the needle. The outcome is in His hands, not in the skill of man or the stillness of a beast. Turn, then, from the means to the Master, and thy hands shall be strengthened and thy knees confirmed.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. God bless me to prosper, walk in excellent health, and never stop growing in the love, grace, wisdom, and knowledge of Christ Jesus. God bless me to know You in truth, fall in love with You with all my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength and never fall out of love with You. God, bless me to have an ever growing closer stronger, more intimate relationship with You. Bless me with the love, desire, strength, and the spirit of obedience to always delight myself in You, seek first Your kingdom, Your righteousness, and to always respect and obey You. Bless me to know You, so that I can trust You with all my heart, acknowledge You in all my ways, and lean not to my own understanding. Bless me with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in all You have called me to do. 
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