Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

March 16

      Grace in the Morning
      
      "Come up in the morning . . . and present thyself unto me in the top of the mount" (Exod. 34:2).
      
      The morning is the time fixed for my meeting the Lord. The very word morning is as a cluster of rich grapes. Let us crush them, and drink the sacred wine. In the morning! Then God means me to be at my best in strength and hope. I have not to climb in my weakness. In the night I have buried yesterday's fatigue, and in the morning take a new lease of energy. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified! Successful is the day whose first victory was won in prayer! Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount!
      
      My Father, I am coming. Nothing on the mean plain shall keep me away from the holy heights. At Thy bidding I come, so Thou wilt meet me. Morning on the mount! It will make me strong and glad all the rest of the day so well begun. --Joseph Parker.
      
      Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,
      When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee;
      Fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight,
      Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.
      
      Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows,
      The solemn hush of nature newly born;
      Alone with Thee in breathless adoration,
      In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.
      
      As in the dawning o'er the waveless ocean,
      The image of the morning-star doth rest,
      So in this stillness, Thou beholdest only
      Thine image in the waters of my breast.
      
      When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,
      Its closing eyes look up to Thee in prayer;
      Sweet the repose, beneath Thy wings o'er shadowing,
      But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there. --Harriet Beecher Stowe
      
      My mother's habit was every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour to her own room, and to spend that hour in reading the Bible, in meditation and prayer. From that hour, as from a pure fountain, she drew the strength and sweetness which enabled her to fulfill all her duties, and to remain unruffled by the worries and pettinesses which are so often the trial of narrow neighborhoods. As I think of her life, and all it had to bear, I see the absolute triumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian lady. I never saw her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word of anger, of calumny, or of idle gossip; I never observed in her any sign of a single sentiment unbecoming to a soul which had drunk of the river of the water of life, and which had fed upon manna in the barren wilderness.--Farrar
      
      Give God the blossom of the day. Do not put Him off with faded leaves.