Best Suited for You

I opened Morning and Evening this morning, groggily trying to remember what date it was today. I overshot November 3rd and was thumbing back when I noticed that I’d underlined quite a bit from the November 11th meditation. As I read, I understood why. Then I dogeared the page (yes, I do that sort of thing!), read it to my husband who wrote it in his journal, and thought: “I have to post this!” 

“Believer…you should be satisfied with your earthly portion; for you may rest assured that it is the fittest for you. Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition…Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances…Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God.

            Trials must and will befall—
            But with humble faith to see
            Love inscribed upon them all;
            This is happiness to me.”

Psalm 16:5 (NIV) says, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.” As Elisabeth Elliot comments, “I know of no greater simplifier for all of life.” Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Pub., 1995), 18.

So whether your portion be big or small, difficult or pleasant, whether your daily cross be light (a fussy toddler like I have) or heavy (widowhood like the woman who wrote to us recently), remember that Divine Love has put you there, and so there is the best place to be.

How simple.