My God shall be my strength. Isa. xlix. 5.
Oh, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.—Phillips Brooks.
January 26th.
Despising the shame. Heb. xii. 2.
And how is that to be done? In two ways. Go up the mountain, and the things in the plain will look very small; the higher you rise the more insignificant they will seem. Hold fellowship with God, and the threatening foes here will seem very, very unformidable. Another way is, pull up the curtain and gaze on what is behind it. The low foot-hills that lie at the base of some Alpine country may look high when seen from the plain, as long as the snowy summits are wrapped in mist; but when a little puff of wind comes and clears away the fog from the lofty peaks, nobody looks at the little green hills in front. So the world's hindrances and the world's difficulties and cares look very lofty till the cloud lifts. But when we see the great white summits, everything lower does not seem so very high after all. Look to Jesus, and that will dwarf the difficulties.—Alex. McLaren.
January 27th.
Are there not twelve hours in the day? John xi. 9.
The very fact of a Christian being here, and not in heaven, is a proof that some work awaits him.—William Arnot.
January 28th.
Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Matt. xxvi. 39.