The Prized Treasures

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  “Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? . . . .   The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.” Jerome K. Jerome, “T...

thinking about: Isaiah 53:4-6

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“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”

Spurgeon was right . . . we are just too busy. We would really like to spend time thinking about it, perhaps weeping over it, but business calls, duty demands, a promise we made to someone somewhere must be fulfilled—just can’t think about it NOW. We’ll come back to it later, maybe tonight. If not then, then later for certain or perhaps another day.

“Believer in Jesus,” Spurgeon writes, “can you gaze upon Him without tears, as He stands before you the mirror of agonizing love?”

Spurgeon even tells himself, “My soul, stand here and weep over His poor stricken body.”

Yes. Stand here and gaze. Sit there and weep.

I won’t write any more so you don’t read any more. So we can go back and gaze . . .

and weep.

There is time.

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