It is good to look back and think about all the changes that have taken place in our lives over the years. What happened was not what we might have expected or what we would necessarily have wanted, but we can trace the Lord’s hand in our life. He has not forsaken us. He has helped us through many trials over the years. He has answered our prayers and kept us from falling. He still has future plans for us and we should trust him for the future.
Whether you are seeking the Lord for the first time, or you are an experienced Christian, if you have no assurance, it could be because you give no proper thanks to God. The seeker says, ‘I have repented many times, but I feel nothing.’ That could be for a number of reasons. It could be due to incomplete repentance but equally, it could be a failure to thank God for things he has actually done for you already. Even as a seeker you can do that. You are still outside the kingdom, but of course you have already received much from the Lord. Wasn’t there a time when you wanted to get far away from church, from the gospel, from God? Now you want to get in. ‘I didn’t deserve this softening of my heart’, you may say. Even if you don’t think you have had the greatest blessing, you can remember that once you were against the message; now you desire it.
Equally it may be that you are not resting on the promise, that he will never turn you away. When cast down, poor William Cowper, the hymn writer, couldn’t rest on the promises – he was suffering from severe melancholy. His theology was grand. John Newton, his friend, said, ‘Don’t you believe that the promise is for all?’ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘for everyone, except me.’ He could believe at some periods in his life, but not at others.
His mercies humble me today, but how can I pray? Do it is Jacob did. I am not worthy to have the Messiah’s line when I cheated my way into it. I am not worthy to have God extend his patience towards me, after all I have been and done.
What is the least of all the mercies? Well, that is for you to figure out. But select something, perhaps something which is not the least. ‘I am not worthy’, you might say, ‘of my wife or my husband to have been given lifelong with me a Christian woman, a Christian man, or these children. I am not worthy of the least of thy mercies or this provision that I have for life’, which I often grumble about and feel it isn't enough or it isn't quite right. I should be more profitably thinking, I am not worthy of these provisions which the Lord has given to me. And I am certainly not worthy of the big blessings, worthy to teach a Sunday school class, worthy to preach from a pulpit, worthy to witness for him. Come to the Lord always with that. How much of our grumblings and complaints and sorrows and sighs will be shamed away! Lord, I am not worthy of the least of all the truth which I have been shown over the years. How little I witness. How little I speak profitably to others. How few I attempt to reach. I am not worthy to have been made the custodian, the possessor of so much truth, so many spiritual lessons and blessings of light and understanding. What have I done with it? How little use I have made of all the truths which I've been shown. Some people come to the pastor and try to tell him their faults – pastors do not like hearing confessions; they are not priests – but almost as soon as they mention their sins, they excuse themselves. When you say, ‘I am unworthy’, don’t add, ‘but I wouldn’t have done it except for this or that.’ All we can do is ask for a free pardon, without making defence for our sins to God.