"The illfavoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven wellfavoured and
fat kine." --Genesis 41:4
Pharaoh's dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth
have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry;
my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency
and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances
in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean
duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and
peace. If I neglect prayer for never so short a time, I lose all the
spirituality to which I had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven,
the old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in my
soul. When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms of worldliness, and
the palmerworms of self-indulgence, lay my heart completely desolate, and make
my soul to languish, all my former fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me
nothing whatever. How anxious should I be to have no lean-fleshed days, no
ill-favoured hours! If every day I journeyed towards the goal of my desires I
should soon reach it, but backsliding leaves me still far off from the prize of
my high calling, and robs me of the advances which I had so laboriously made.
The only way in which all my days can be as the "fat kine," is to feed them in
the right meadow, to spend them with the Lord, in His service, in His company,
in His fear, and in His way. Why should not every year be richer than the past,
in love, and usefulness, and joy?--I am nearer the celestial hills, I have had
more experience of my Lord, and should be more like Him. O Lord, keep far from
me the curse of leanness of soul; let me not have to cry, "My leanness, my
leanness, woe unto me!" but may I be well-fed and nourished in Thy house, that I
may praise Thy name.
Morning and Evening Index
