A Devotion from George H. Morrison

[Nothing] will … separate us from the love of God. 
-Romans 8:38

In his enumeration of things that might dim the love of God to us, the apostle mentions things present. By things present he means the events and trials of the present day. The task in which we are presently engaged, the duties of the common day, the multitude of things we must get through before bed—these are apt to blind us to the great realities and to separate us from the love of God in Christ.

That separating power arises from the exceeding nearness of things present. Things that are very near command our vision and often lead to erroneous perspective. Each day brings its round of present duties. They absorb us, commanding every energy and, so doing, may blind us. In busy lives where near things tyrannize, we all require moments of withdrawal. To halt a moment and just to say, “God loves me,” to halt a moment and say, “God is here,” is a secret to mastering the separating power of things present.

Another element in that separating power is the difficulty of understanding present things. It is always easier to understand yesterday than to grasp the meaning of today. We begin to understand our past, its trials, its disappointments, and its illnesses, but such things are very hard to understand in their actual moment, and it is that, the difficulty of reading love in the dark characters of present things, which constitutes their separating power.

Another element of the separating power is found in the distraction of things present. “Life isn’t a little bundle of big things: it’s a big bundle of little things.” What things escape us in our unending busyness! Peace and joy and self-control and the serenity that ought to mark the Christian. And sometimes that is lost which to lose is the tragedy of tragedies—the sense and certainty of love divine.

Of spiritual victory over present things, the one perfect example is our Lord. Never doubting the love of God in his darkest hour, through broken days, through never-ending calls, when there was not leisure so much as to eat, he mastered the separating power of things present. Do not forget he did all that for us. His victories were all achieved for us. In a deep sense we do not win our victories—we appropriate the victories of Christ.