Are You Provoking God?
Susannah Spurgeon (1832-1903) was the wife of the famed ‘Prince of Preachers,’ Charles Spurgeon. Susannah was converted as a young woman and wrestled with doubt and despair until she was helped spiritually by a young pastor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. They were later married.
Throughout their marriage, Susannah was a right hand to Charles, assisting with the ministry of the church and walking alongside him as a spiritual companion in the home. In spite of debilitating illness later in life, Susannah Spurgeon oversaw many ministries and authored a number of books.
One of these books, A Cluster of Camphire, is a brief devotional work that offers encouragement to sorrowful souls.
In A Cluster of Camphire, Mrs. Spurgeon writes,
Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? (Psalm 78:19) To be sure He can! The question is a most distrustful and cruel one! Our indignation burns against the rebellious people who could thus discredit the power of their gracious God, though He had done such great things for them. “He clave the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.” He had delivered them from galling bonds of slavery and had fed them with bread from heaven; yet they doubted His ability to supply them with the meat their heart desired and “they spake against God” in thus questioning His love and care.
We too have “[provoked] the Holy One of Israel.”
As we read their history and wonder at their hardness of heart, we say, “How could they be so blind, so ungrateful, so perversely unbelieving?” But the next moment we bow our heads in shame, and our own hearts condemn us as we remember how often we have committed the very same sin. We too have “[provoked] the Holy One of Israel” and grieved the Spirit of our gracious God by our persistent unbelief; for many a time have we thought, even if we have not said it, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” when His loving, bounteous hand has been preparing and spreading it before us! Have you not found it so? Have you not sometimes been shamed into a lively faith, by receiving the very blessings which you doubted the Lord’s power to give? Has he not often proved Himself “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you have asked or thought” even while your faithless heart has “believed not in God and trusted not in his salvation?”