“I always hope that there is an attainable spiritual region where there are no clouds to hide the Sun of our souls. However, I cannot be very positive about this, for I have not traversed that happy land. Every year of my life has had a winter as well as a summer, and every day has had its night. I have seen brilliant sunshine and heavy rains, and felt warm breezes and fierce winds.

Speaking for the majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I confess that, although the strength is in us, as it is in an oak tree, we do lose our leaves, and the sap within us does not flow with equal vigor during all seasons. We have our ups as well as our downs, our hills as well as our valleys. We are not always rejoicing, we are sometimes heavyhearted because of our various trials. Alas! We are grieved to confess that our fellowship with the Well Beloved is not always that of rapturous delight, but at times we have to seek Him and cry, ‘Oh that I knew where I might find him!’ (Job 23:3).

This appears to me to have been, to a degree, the condition of the spouse when she cried, ‘Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved.’”

[Song of Songs 2:17]

Charles Spurgeon

Joy In Christ’s Presence, 47-48

~~~

Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day.

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love

to all who call upon you.

Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;

listen to my plea for grace.

In the day of my trouble I call upon you,

for you answer me.

Psalm 86: 1, 3-7 (ESV)