Providence Points Devotional: November 19, 2007

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Providence Points eNewsletter
November 19, 2007
Vol. 1 No. 6

" My voice shall thou hear in the morning,O Lord" ' Psalm v. 3.

AUTHORS have found the morning the best time for study and composition--
hence it has been called the friend of the muses. It would be easy to
prove that it is equally a friend to the graces and the duties --it is
the finest season for reflection and devotion. David found it so ; and
therefore resolves: " My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O
Lord."What voice ? The voice of praise: and the voice of prayer--the
one excited by looking back; the other, by looking forward.

How much is there in the morning to call forth the voice of
thanksgiving! Let us think of the
season we have just passed through. How many houseless creatures this
night have had no place where to lay their head! How many victims of
accident and disease have been full of tossing to and fro, until the
dawning of the day; their beds have not comforted them, nor their
couch eased their complaint! How many have been deprived of repose
while attending their neighbors, friends, and relations, in sickness
and sorrow! How many, since the last setting sun, have entered an
awful eternity I How many, this night, have been cut off in their
sins!

Many have been terrified, robbed, injured, murdered, by wicked and
unreasonable men! How many have been consumed by fire, or drowned with
water! How many, this night, have been engaged in works of darkness;
and who, if any knew them, would be in the terrors of the shadow of
death! How many have risen this morning to pass the day in anguish !
How many to suffer want! How many, who have all things richly to
enjoy, have risen only to live another day without God in the world !
They lie down and rise up like the beasts that perish: God is not in
all their thoughts. And is it otherwise with us ? What shall we render
unto the Lord for all his benefits towards us ? Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his Name together.

And with how many of these merciful nights have we been favoured!
Hence, perhaps, we have
been so little affected with the goodness of God in them. How strange!
that what increases the greatness of our obligation, should diminish
the sense of it! Yet it is by the interruption, the suspension, the
want of our comforts, we are made to learn the value of them. Let us
guard against this perverseness of ingratitude. Let us remember, that
if our mercies are common, they must be numerous; and so multiply the
claims to our praise.
[Morning Exercises, Jay, p.47, 1829]

SDG