[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-1104":3},"NOVEMBER 4\r\nAs I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, the heavens   were opened and I saw visions of God ... and the hand of the Lord was there upon me (Ezek. 1:1, 3.).\r\nThere is no commentator of the Scriptures half so valuable as a\r\ncaptivity. The old Psalms have quavered for us with a new pathos as we sat by our \"Babel's stream,\" and have sounded for us with new\r\njoy as we found our captivity turned as the streams in the South.\r\nThe man who has seen much affliction will not readily part with his copy of the Word of God. Another book may seem to others to be  identical with his own; but it is not the same to him, for over his\r\nold and tear-stained Bible he has written, in characters which are\r\nvisible to no eyes but his own, the record of his experiences, and\r\never and anon he comes on Bethel pillars or Elim palms, which are to him the memorials of some critical chapter in his history.\r\nIf we are to receive benefit from our captivity we must accept the situation and turn it to the best possible account. Fretting over\r\nthat from which we have been removed or which has been taken away\r\nfrom us, will not make things better, but it will prevent us from\r\nimproving those which remain. The bond is only tightened by our stretching it to the uttermost.\r\nThe impatient horse which will not quietly endure his halter only strangles himself in his stall. The high-mettled animal that is\r\nrestive In the yoke only galls his shoulders; and every one will\r\nunderstand the difference between the restless starling of which Sterne has written, breaking its wings against the bars of the\r\ncage, and crying, \"I can't get out, I can't get out,\" and the\r\ndocile canary that sits upon its perch and sings as if it would outrival the lark soaring to heaven's gate.\r\nNo calamity can be to us an unmixed evil is we carry it in direct   and fervent prayer to God, for even as one in taking shelter from the rain beneath a tree may find on its branches fruit which he\r\nlooked not for, so we in fleeing for refuge beneath the shadow of\r\n\r\nGod's wing, will always find more in God than we had seen or known before.\r\nIt is thus through our trials and afflictions that God give us\r\nfresh revelations of Himself; and the Jabbok ford leads to Peniel, where, as the result of our wrestling, we \"see God face to face,\"\r\nand our fives are preserved. Take this to thyself, 0 captive, and He will give thee \"songs in the night,\" and turn for thee \"the\r\nshadow of death\r\ninto the morning.\" --William Taylor.\r\n\"Submission to the divine will is the softest pillow on which to recline. \"\r\nIt filled the room, and it filled my life, With a glory of source unseen;\r\nIt made me calm in the midst of strife, And in winter my heart was green.\r\nAnd the birds of promise sang on the tree\r\nWhen the storm was breaking on land and sea.",1783499794003]