31. MOURNING ENDED

"How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

Your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. Isaiah 60:20

We have traced, in previous meditations, God's thoughts towards us from a past eternity—loving us with an everlasting love. We have pondered some of His present thoughts of tenderness, kindness, and sympathy, towards His suffering and sorrowing, His tried and tempted people. But as His thoughts have been from everlasting, so are they to everlasting. "He who loved His people," says a now glorified saint, "out of darkness, loves them into everlasting light."

It is again the mourner who is the specially benefitted heir to the preciousness of this 'thought of God' regarding a world of glory. Some prized earthly sun has set. Some fond earthly star that has long lighted up the earthly pathway, has been swept from the firmament. "Hush your sorrow!" says He—"dry your tears." These setting suns, and waning moons, and quenched stars, shall reappear as fixed orbs in an unchanging sphere—where the 'loved and lost' shall be loved never to be lost again. Yes, and better still, there will be a nobler light—a peerless Sun—to supersede the need of all earthly luminaries, and lead you to be independent of all—"The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God lights it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

Other luminaries may still, and doubtless shall still be there, with their cherished radiance. The old hallowed memories of earth will be revived, restored, perpetuated. But the city and the citizens will have no need of them; they will not require the tiny candle, or glimmering starlight, when they have the full blaze of noon. They will not need the feeble rill, when they have the boundless, infinite ocean.

God's works and ways, His character and perfections, His wisdom and faithfulness, His ever-present fellowship and love, will form perpetual theme and material for contemplation. The ever-new song of the ransomed will be the old strain of earth—"How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"And the days of your mourning shall be ended." Mourning one, think of this! Weeping days here on earth; joyful days yonder. The muffled harp here; the golden harp yonder. The ocean swept with storm and tempest here; the crystal sea unruffled with one wave yonder. The dew-drops and tear-drops of earthly sorrow, as they sparkle in the radiance of the risen Sun of Eternity, will be so many little mirrors reflecting the glory of God—lustrous witnesses of His faithfulness and love.

Life may now be to you a dreary winter landscape—its once sunny hollows and green nooks—the crevices of spring and summer—embedded with snow. But a glorious resurrection-time is at hand, when the gladsome announcement shall be made—"The winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come." Oh! blessed prospect. In God's light, we shall see light. The unexplained thoughts of the present all made luminous in the glory of that unsetting sun—not one floating cloud discernible on the boundless horizon.

Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. 1 Cor. 13:12

The Lord Almighty has sworn this oath: "It will all happen as I have planned. It will come about according to My purposes. Isaiah 14:24