A hand, a divine and omnipotent hand!

(Horatius Bonar, "The Night of Weeping")  LISTEN to audio!  Download audio

(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

The Holy Spirit is our Comforter. He is mighty to comfort as well as to sanctify.

His name is "the Comforter." His office is to console.

In the discharge of this office He puts forth His power, not only mediately and indirectly through the Word, but immediately and directly upon the soul, sustaining and strengthening it when fainting and troubled.

It is an unspeakable consolation to know that there is a hand, a divine and omnipotent hand,
laid upon our wounded spirit—not only upholding it, but drying up, as it were, the very springs of grief within.

In the day of oppressive sorrow, when bowed down to the dust, what is it that we feel so much our need of, as a hand that can come into close and direct contact with our souls to lift them up and strengthen them?

It is here that human consolation fails. Friends can say much to soothe us, but they cannot lay their finger upon the hidden seat of sorrow. They can put their arm around the fainting body, but not around the fainting spirit.

Here the heavenly aid comes in! The Spirit throws around us the everlasting arms, and we are invincibly upheld. We cannot sink, for He sustains, He comforts, He cheers. And who knows so well as He how to sustain, and comfort, and cheer?

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Something to ponder:
"There is no grief which the Holy Spirit cannot relieve! That divine Comforter knows so well how to get at the secret springs of our sorrow, and to put the comfort right into the spring itself—that there can never be a grief which can elude Him, or which can baffle His skill." Spurgeon