"To the point" Spurgeon: How terrible for us if chance had anything to do with our lives.
Being adopted as sons and daughters of God means believers are brought into His divine family through Jesus Christ, receiving a secure legal standing, a new identity, and an eternal inheritance.
My life is not my own. 🙏
✦ One Reading, One Truth
Spurgeon brings just one reading today — and it is the right one for a pilgrim on the road. Nothing in our lives happens by chance. Every event is ordered by the wise and tender will of Him who is our Father and our Friend. 🙏
"How terrible for us if chance had anything to do with the events of our life! We would be like poor sailors put out to sea in an unsafe vessel, without a chart and without a helm. We would know nothing of the port we might ultimately reach... What poor orphans we would all be if we depended for food and clothing, for present comfort and future security, on nothing but chance! No father's care to watch over us."
"What would all that we see around us be, but a great sandstorm in the middle of a desert... We would be pilgrims in a pathless waste, where there were no roads to direct us — travelers who might be overturned and overwhelmed at any moment."
"Thank God, it is not so with us. We believe that everything which happens to us is ordered by the wise and tender will of Him who is our Father and our Friend. We see order in the middle of confusion. We see purposes accomplished where others see nothing but emptiness and randomness."
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
"A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps."
✦ Pilgrims With a Road
Spurgeon paints the life without God: a ship with no chart and no helm, an orphan with no father, a pilgrim in a pathless desert. No port in view. No hand on the wheel. Only wind and storm.
And then — thank God, it is not so with us. The ship has a Pilot. The child has a Father. The pilgrim has a road. Even the whirlwind is His path, and the storm clouds are the dust kicked up by His feet.
Le and Roger know the pilgrim's life better than most — from Portugal to Spain to every corner of France, the house not yet found, the next stop not always known. But never a pathless waste. Spurgeon on September 29: the axle of the chariot of providence is infinite love, and gracious wisdom is the eternal driver. August 30: His eye is on the sparrow. And Le's own words that day: I know someday I will look back and understand this transition. 🙏
✦ Order in the Middle of Confusion
Spurgeon does not say the believer sees no confusion. He says we see order in the middle of it. The storm is still a storm. The whirlwind still blows. But faith sees the Lord walking through it.
October 3 — Guyon's mule stopped at the edge of the cliff. That was not luck. The tire shop on September 22 — not luck. The thought answered before it became a prayer — not luck. Where others see randomness, the child of God sees a Father's hand. 🙏
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
"Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."
✦ Not Orphans — Adopted
Spurgeon's darkest picture is the orphan: no father's care to watch over us. And Le answers with the gospel's brightest word: adopted. Not orphans left to chance — sons and daughters brought into the divine family through Jesus Christ.
Le names three gifts of adoption, and each one answers chance:
A secure legal standing — no longer at the mercy of the winds. The adoption is sealed; the papers cannot be torn up. Le spent a career with contracts — this is the one contract that can never be broken.
A new identity — no longer a nameless traveler in a pathless waste, but a child who cries Abba, Father. The birth was a gift, not a decision (September 27).
An eternal inheritance — Tuesday's reading: heaven is an inheritance, and it comes by birth. Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ.
And then four words that tie the whole week together: My life is not my own. Yesterday — have all of me, gladly. Today — the One who owns my life is my Father, and He is steering. A child does not worry about where the family is going. The Father knows the road. 🙏
"Adopted as sons and daughters of God — a secure legal standing, a new identity, and an eternal inheritance. My life is not my own."
Le · Neufchâtel-en-Bray · Normandy · Not chance, but a FatherA Chart and a Helm
Without God: a ship adrift, an orphan, a pilgrim in a pathless waste. With Him: a Pilot, a Father, a road.
His Way in the Storm
The Lord has His way in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. Even the storm is His road.
Adopted, Not Orphaned
A secure legal standing, a new identity, an eternal inheritance. Not chance's orphans — the Father's children. My life is not my own.
A word for the road: One short reading, and it speaks straight to the pilgrim's life. The motorhome is not adrift. Every stop — Le Faou, Beauvoir, Grandcamp-Maisy, Neufchâtel-en-Bray — is on a road the Father laid out.
Le's answer to the orphan: Spurgeon imagined the orphan with no father's care. Le answered with adoption — standing, identity, inheritance. The child of God is the opposite of a child of chance. And my life is not my own is not a loss — it is the security of belonging to a Father.
Father and Friend: Spurgeon joins two names. A Father governs; a Friend walks beside. God's government is not cold rule — it is tender care.
Yesterday and today: Yesterday — ye are not your own; have all of me, gladly. Today — and the One who owns you is steering. Belonging and being guided are the same mercy. 🙏