Unknown and unobserved

(adapted from Octavius Winslow’s “Morning Thoughts”)

Imagine yourself threading your way along a most
difficult and perilous path, every step of which is
attended with pain and jeopardy, and is taken with
hesitancy and doubt.

Unknown to you and unseen by you, there is one
hovering around you each moment, checking each
false step, and guiding each doubtful one; soothing
each sorrow, and supplying each need.

All is calm and silent.

Not a sound is heard, not a movement is seen.

And yet, to your amazement, just at the critical
moment the needed support comes; you know not
from where, you know not from whom.

Are you a child of God, retracing your steps back
to Paradise by an intricate and a perilous way?

Jesus is near to you at each moment, unseen and often unknown.

You have at times stood speechless with awe at the
strange interposition, on your behalf, of providence
and of grace. No visible sign betokened the source of
your help. There was no echo of footfall at your side,
nor flitting of shadow across your path. No law of
nature was altered or suspended; the sun did not
stand still, nor did the heavens open; and yet
deliverance, strange and effectual deliverance, came
at a moment most unexpected, yet most needed.

 

He it was who, hovering round you, unknown and
unobserved kept you as the apple of His eye, and
sheltered you in the hollow of His hand.It was He who armed you with courage for the fight,
who poured strength into your spirit, and grace into
your heart, when the full weight of calamity pressed
upon them.

Thus has He always been to His saints.

Soon a gale swept down upon them as they rowed,
and the sea grew very rough. They were three or four
miles out when suddenly they saw Jesus walking on
the water toward the boat. They were terrified, but
He called out to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”
John 6:18-20

This incident of ‘the disciples in the storm’ presents
a striking instance of this. Behold Him standing upon
the shore, eyeing, with riveted gaze, the little boat
as it struggled amid the storm.

They were often invisible to human eye, but not a
moment were they lost to His. He beheld from thence

their support.

Stepping from the shore, He approached them. They
did not realize that it was Jesus, and were afraid. But
their knowledge of Him was not necessary to their
safety. It was enough that He knew them. And just as
the storm was at its height, and their fears rose with
their peril, He drew near and said, in His own gentle,
soothing tone, unto them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”