A short devotion for the day: Can we count on God?
Days come when our need of strength is desperate. We seem to be touching bottom and wonder if we can go on. Does God hear?
Read: Psalm 72
Psalm 72:12 “For He will deliver the needy when he crieth and the poor that hath no helper.”
Can we count on that?
For none of us is without his need, none of without his poverty, not only poverty of purse but poverty of spirit. The poor that hath no helper! There are poverties which no human helper can relieve.
Days come when our need of strength is desperate. We seem to be touching bottom and wonder if we can go on. It may be a sorrow, or a disappointment, or just the drudgery of life, that has brought us down. And at such a time it is well to remember that the Lord shall deliver, the needy when he crieth. We can be sure of the love of God – sure that nothing can take away His love, and He will keep us from being quitters on our job.
Life itself is never hurt by trouble. Life does not depend, for quality, on the things we lack or the luxuries we have. Life depends on what we are, and on what the Great Artificer can make out of us. What if the worst comes, and what if we do touch bottom? God can turn the worst into the best, if we will trust in Him. He can turn burdens into wings, drudgery into song.
O Thou, whose grace doth ever keep us and whose love can never fail, save us in times of weariness from giving up, and reconcile us to the cross we carry, and heal our poverties with the riches of Christ; in His Name. Amen.
About John Henry Harms
John Henry Harms graduated from Newberry College in 1893 and from the Gettysburg Lutheran Theological Seminary in 1897. His brother, John Edward also graduated from the Gettysburg Seminary and was a Lutheran preacher. His first call was to Trinity Lutheran Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, serving there until 1900.
In 1900 he accepted a call from the Newport (Perry County, Pennsylvania) Lutheran Charge. He was installed 12/2/1900 by Rev. W. M. B. Glanding at St. Paul’s, Newport. After a short stay of eighteen months, he was called to Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Harrisburg.
In 1902, he was awarded an A. M. by Newberry College.
In the summer of 1908, he was notified by telegram of his election to the presidency of Newberry College. He accepted the call and served until 1918. During this period, in 1912, he received his D. D. from Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina.
In 1918, he began his work at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion in Philadelphia. He was to continue in this call for 27 years, resigning in 1945.
During this pastorate he also served as the president of the Board of Publications of the United Lutheran Church. And, in 1945, received a Litt. D. from Newberry College.
He was the author of at least two books: The Victory of Faith: Devotions for the Lenten Season" and “From Day to Day: Book of Daily Devotions.
Rev. Harms passed away at his home in Philadelphia after a long illness.1
Alec Satin
Editor
Your editor is a Bible-believing Christian with no illusions about our darkening age. Keep reading your KJV. If you don’t have one, get a printed copy with good type and read it every day. May God bless you, keep you, and protect you.