Daily Strength for Daily Needs Part 3

January 17

_Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings_.--I PETER iv. 12, 13.

We take with solemn thankfulness Our burden up, nor ask it less, And count it joy that even we May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee, Whose will be done!

J. G. WHITTIER.

Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, darkness, and desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity and blessed occasion of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellows.h.i.+p with thy self-denying, suffering Saviour. Look at no inward or outward trouble in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and then every kind of trial and distress will become the blessed day of thy prosperity. That state is best, which exerciseth the highest faith in, and fullest resignation to G.o.d.

WM. LAW.

January 18

_Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy G.o.d hath given unto thee_.--DEUT. XXVI. 11.

_Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks_.--I THESS. v. 16, 18.

Grave on thy heart each past "red-letter day"!

Forget not all the suns.h.i.+ne of the way By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers, And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares, Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be One record of His love and faithfulness to thee.

F. R. HAVERGAL.

Grat.i.tude consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the mult.i.tude of G.o.d's gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that G.o.d loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life. It is a blessed thought, that from our childhood G.o.d has been laying His fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of His hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received. When this feeling is awakened, the heart beats with a pulse of thankfulness. Every gift has its return of praise. It awakens an unceasing daily converse with our Father,--He speaking to us by the descent of blessings, we to Him by the ascent of thanksgiving. And all our whole life is thereby drawn under the light of His countenance, and is filled with a gladness, serenity, and peace which only thankful hearts can know.

H. E. MANNING.

January 19

_Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord_.--PS. cv. 3.

_The joy of the Lord is your strength_.--NEH. viii. 10.

Be Thou my Sun, my selfishness destroy, Thy atmosphere of Love be all my joy; Thy Presence be my suns.h.i.+ne ever bright, My soul the little mote that lives but in Thy light.

GERHARD TERSTEEGEN.

I do not know when I have had happier times in my soul, than when I have been sitting at work, with nothing before me but a candle and a white cloth, and hearing no sound but that of my own breath, with G.o.d in my soul and heaven in my eye... I rejoice in being exactly what I am,--a creature capable of loving G.o.d, and who, as long as G.o.d lives, must be happy. I get up and look for a while out of the window, and gaze at the moon and stars, the work of an Almighty hand. I think of the grandeur of the universe, and then sit down, and think myself one of the happiest beings in it.

A POOR METHODIST WOMAN, 18TH CENTURY.

January 20

_The Lord taketh pleasure In His people: He will beautify the meek with salvation_.--PS. cxlix. 4.

Long listening to Thy words, My voice shall catch Thy tone, And, locked in Thine, my hand shall grow All loving like Thy own.

B. T.

It is not in words explicable, with what divine lines and lights the exercise of G.o.dliness and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenance, neither to what darkness their departure will consign the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which, even momentarily, will not impress a new fairness upon the features; neither on them only, but on the whole body the moral and intellectual faculties have operation, for all the movements and gestures, however slight, are different in their modes according to the mind that governs them--and on the gentleness and decision of right feeling follows grace of actions, and, through continuance of this, grace of form.

J. RUSKIN.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

R. W. EMERSON.

January 21

_Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint_.--ISA. xl. 30, 31.

Lord, with what courage and delight I do each thing, When Thy least breath sustains my wing!

I s.h.i.+ne and move Like those above, And, with much gladness Quitting sadness, Make me fair days of every night.

H. VAUGHAN.

Man, by living wholly in submission to the Divine Influence, becomes surrounded with, and creates for himself, internal pleasures infinitely greater than any he can otherwise attain to--a state of heavenly Beat.i.tude.

J. P. GREAVES.

By persisting in a habit of self-denial, we shall, beyond what I can express, increase the inward powers of the mind, and shall produce that cheerfulness and greatness of spirit as will fit us for all good purposes; and shall not have lost pleasure, but _changed_ it; the soul being then filled with its own intrinsic pleasures.

HENRY MORE.

January 22

_Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord_.--HOSEA vi. 3.

And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread,-- But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing G.o.d's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!

J. G. WHITTIER.

It is by doing our duty that we learn to do it. So long as men dispute whether or no a thing is their duty, they get never the nearer. Let them set ever so weakly about doing it, and the face of things alters. They find in themselves strength which they knew not of. Difficulties which it seemed to them they could not get over, disappear. For He accompanies it with the influences of His blessed Spirit, and each performance opens our minds for larger influxes of His grace, and places them in communion with Him.