"And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows."—Genesis 41:4. NIV by C. H. Spurgeon
PHARAOH'S dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry. My seasons of coldness have frozen the warm and pleasant glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm. My fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life. I need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and peace.
If I neglect prayer for even a short time, I lose all the spirituality I had attained. If I draw no fresh supplies from heaven, the old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in my soul. When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms of worldliness, and the palmerworms of self-indulgence lay my heart completely desolate and make my soul to languish, all my former fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me nothing whatever. How anxious I should be to have no lean-fleshed days, no ill-favored hours!
Backsliding leaves me far away from the prize of my high calling and robs me of the advances I had laboriously made. The only way my days can be as the "fat cows" is to feed in the right meadow, spend time with the Lord in His service, in His company, in His fear, and in His way. O Lord, keep me far away from the curse of leanness of soul. Let me not have to cry, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" Instead, may I be well-fed and nourished in Thy house, that I might praise Thy name.
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