A drop in a bucket – Thomas Brooks
“The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him.” Lamentations 3:24
“Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered as a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust.” Isaiah 40:15
All nations are but as a drop in a bucket, that may in a moment be wiped off with a finger in comparison of God, nay, they are all nothing; but that word is too high, for they are less than nothing. Had a man as many worlds at his command as there are men on earth, or angels in heaven, yet they would be but as so many drops, or as so many atoms compared to a saint’s portion!
When Alcibiades was proudly boasting of his spacious lands, Socrates wittily rebukes his pride by bringing him a map of the world, and wishing him to show him where his lands did lie; his lands would hardly amount to more than the prick of a pin. England, Scotland, and Ireland are but three little spots compared to the vast continents which are in other parts of the world; and what then is your palace, your lordships, your manors, your farm, your house, your cottagebut a little speck but a prick of a pin compared to God, who is so great, so vast a portion!
Oh, sirs! if you had the understanding of all the angels in heaven, and the tongues of all the men on earth, yet you would not be able to conceive, express, or set forth the greatness and largeness of a saint’s portion.
Can you count the stars of heaven, or number the sands of the sea, or stop the sun in his course, or make a new world? Then, and not until then, will you be able to declare what a great, what an immense portion God is. If “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him”, oh how much less, then, are they able to declare the great things that God has laid up for His people in the eternal world!