All The Trees Of Earth Are Marked For The Woodman's Ax!

How frail is humanity!
 
How short is life, how full of trouble!
 
Job 14:1  Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
 
Job 14:2  He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

It may be of great service to us to remember this mournful fact...

For it may help us to hold earthly things with a loose hand.

There is nothing very pleasant in the recollection that we are not above the shafts of adversity...

But it may humble us and prevent our boasting, My mountain stands firm - I shall never be moved.

It may keep us from taking too deep root in this earthly soil, from which we are so soon to be transplanted into the Heavenly garden.

Let us recollect the frail tenure upon which we hold our temporal mercies.

If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for the woodman's ax, we would not be so ready to build our nests in them. 

We would love others...but we would love with the love which expects death, and which reckons upon separations. 

Our dear relations are but loaned to us, and the hour when we must return them to the Lender's hand may be even at the door.

The like is certainly true of our worldly goods, Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone...

Pro 23:5  Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

Our health is equally precarious. 

We are frail flowers of the field and must not reckon upon blooming forever.

There is a time appointed for weakness and sickness, when we shall have to glorify God by suffering and not by earnest activity.

There is no single point in which we can hope to escape from the sharp arrows of affliction.

Out of our few days there is not one secure from sorrow.

Man's life is a cask full of bitter wine; he who looks for joy in it, would sooner find honey in an ocean of brine!

Beloved reader, do not set your affections upon things of earth...

But seek those things which are above...

For here the moth devours, and the thief breaks through...

But there all joys are perpetual and eternal. 

The path of trouble is the way Home.

Lord, make this thought a soft pillow for many a weary head!

~Charles Spurgeon~