There is much precious significance in this. The Lord is often present in our lives in things that we do not dream possess any significance. We are asking God about something which needs His mighty working, and the very instrument by which He is to work is by our side, perhaps for weeks and months and years all unrecognized, until suddenly, some day it grows luminous and glorious with the very presence of the Lord, and becomes the mighty instrument of His victorious working. He loves to show His hand through the unexpected. Often he keeps us from seeing His way until just before He opens it, and then, immediately that it is unfolded, we find that He was walking by our side in the very thing, long before we even suspected its meaning.--_A. B. Simpson._ =March 20th.= _All things work together for good to them that love God. Rom. viii. 28._ If our circumstances find us in God, we shall find God in all our circumstances.--_Selected._ =March 21st.= _He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Ps. xxiii. 3._ He always has a purpose in His leading. He knows where the bits of green pasture are, and He would lead His flock to these. The way may be rough, but it is the right way to the pasture. "Paths of righteousness" may not be straight paths; but they are paths that lead somewhere--to the right place. Many desert paths are illusive. They start out clear and plain, but soon they are lost in the sands. They go nowhere. But the paths of righteousness have a goal to which they unerringly lead.--_J. R. Miller._ =March 22nd.= _And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. Ex. iv. 13._ It was a very grudging assent. It was as much as to say, "Since Thou art determined to send me and I must undertake the mission, then let it be so; but I would that it might have been another, and I go because I am compelled." So often do we shrink back from the sacrifice or obligation to which God calls us, that we think we are going to our doom. We seek every reason for evading the divine will, little realizing that He is forcing us out from our quiet homes into a career which includes, among other things, the song of victory on the banks of the Red Sea; the two lonely sojourns for forty days in converse with God; the shining face; the vision of glory; the burial by the hand of Michael; and the supreme honor of standing beside the Lord on the Transfiguration mount.--_F. B. Meyer._ =March 23rd.= _See then that ye walk circumspectly. Eph. v. 15._ There is no such thing as negative influence. We are all positive in the place we occupy, making the world better or making it worse.--_T. DeWitt Talmage._ =March 24th.= _She took for him an ark of bulrushes . . . and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. Ex. ii. 3._