"Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials..."

  'My heart is like wax: it is melted within My breast…'                       

Psalm 22:14

        Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God….                    

Hebrews 2:17

Jesus, only You know our deepest trials,

You bore the grief of our fallen world.

Your Body was pierced, Your heart full of sorrow;

Our sins fell upon You, so we can be restored.

I am a wind-blown reed, weakened and bruised;

You'll not break me, nor quench my flickering flame.

You were crushed and wounded to make me new;

Jesus, my heart overflows for Your Cross of grace.

C. TAYLOR

Our Blessed Lord experienced a terrible sinking and melting of soul.  'The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?'  Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials; all besides is as nothing.  Well might the suffering Saviour cry to His God, 'Be not far from Me', for above all other seasons a man needs his God when his heart is melted within him because of heaviness.  Believer, come near the cross this morning, and humbly adore the King of glory as having once been brought far lower, in mental distress and inward anguish, than any one among us; and mark His fitness to become a faithful High Priest, who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.  Especially let those of us whose sadness springs directly from the withdrawal of a present sense of our Father's love, enter into near and intimate communion with Jesus.  Let us not give way to despair, since through this dark room the Master has passed before us.  Our souls may sometimes long and faint, and thirst even to anguish, to behold the light of the Lord's countenance: at such times let us stay ourselves with the sweet fact of the sympathy of our great High Priest.  Our drops of sorrow may well be forgotten in the ocean of His griefs; but how high ought our love to rise!  Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in spring tides, cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul, and float it right up to my Lord's feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value; and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put His ear to me, He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet forever.

 C. H. SPURGEON

Mornings and Evenings

      …such is the Lord Jesus, the One who in the first chapter of Hebrews is shown as the unique Son of God, heir of all things, the brightness of God's glory, the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power, is seen in the second chapter as stooping to be "made like unto His brethren in all things."  God has arranged it that in every conceivable way Jesus has been made like unto His brethren. There are no sufferings that His brethren suffer but that He has suffered them too.  There are no tears that His brethren shed, but that He has shed them too….God has made the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering.  He would not be an adequate High Priest for us had He not been through everything that we go through….  In our hour of suffering He says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.  I am your Brother, I have been made like unto you in everything."

 ROY HESSION 1908-87

From Shadow to Substance