Day: November 9, 2013

Second Fiddle

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Vance Havner Imageby Vance Havner

And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and grayheaded. 1 Samuel 12:2

Samuel was a better man than Saul, but he knew how to take a back seat graciously. Blessed are the Saints of the Second Fiddle! Some want to do solo work or be the whole orchestra. Saul had no grace for second place. When he heard the women singing, “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands,” he “was very wroth and the saying displeased him.” Some preachers have been known to react that way when eclipsed by one more successful.

The best men are not always kings. “I have seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” Diotrephes loves the pre-eminence. “In honor preferring one another”-surely that grace languishes for want of exercise!

John the Baptist was in his heyday as the foremost prophet and preacher of his time when he said of Jesus, “He must increase but I must decrease.” God grant us the Beatitude of the Background, that only He may be seen!

Samuel took the back seat for a lesser, John the Baptist for a greater. Can you play second fiddle, whether for a lesser or for the Greatest of All?

by Vance Havner

Broken! Trampled! Torn!

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J.R. Miller Imageby J.R. Miller

“Help for the Day”

Life may seem a failure here, crushed like a lily under the heel of wrong or sin–broken, trampled, torn! But it may yet become a glorious success. Many of the truest and best of God’s children, know only defeat in this world. They are ever beaten back and thrust down. The burdens are too heavy for them. They are overmastered by sorrows. The world’s enmity treads them in the dust. They are not worldly wise, and, while others march by to great earthly success–they live obscurely oppressed, cheated, wronged, and lie buried away in the darkness of failure.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal!” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

by J.R. Miller