[John Paton] began his Autobiography with the words, "What I write here is for the glory of God." That is true. But God gets glory when his Son is exalted. And his Son is exalted when we cherish him above all things, especially when "all things" are about to be snatched from us, including our life on earth. That is what this story is about. Here is the story of Paton in the tree.
Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I, though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of earth itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then? (Autobiography, p.21)(Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ, p. 82)
Thank you, Jesus, for enduring rejection past understanding, so that even this undeserving, dirty sinner who puts all her hope and trust in You, can, with all confidence respond, "Yes! Yes, I do have such a friend! In Jesus I have an unfailing, Altogether Lovely Friend." Enable me to cherish you above all things--to cherish you rightly--that You may be exalted!
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