Reading: “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.” —Isaiah 33:17
O God, in the multitude of Your mercies I am again permitted to see the light of a new day. With another rising morn scatter all the clouds of sin and unbelief from my soul. Unfold to my view bright glimpses of Yourself, sweet foretastes of those joys which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard.”
Here, Lord, I have “no continuing city.” Change is my portion in this the house of my pilgrimage. I would not desire to live here always. I am “willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” Wean me from this uncertain world. Bring me to live under the powers of a world to come. I rejoice to think of the happy myriads already in glory, “clothed in white robes, with palms in their hands,” safe in the presence of the Master they love with every tear-drop wiped away.
I rejoice to know that the blood and grace to which they owe their crowns are still free as ever. Oh, may I be enabled, with some good measure of triumphant assurance, to say, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.” May the thought of that endless, sinless, sorrowless immortality reconcile me to all earth’s severest discipline. Let me not murmur under the heaviest cross in the prospect of such a crown. Let me not refuse to pass cheerfully through the hottest furnace which is to refine and purify me for this “exceeding weight of glory”; but bear with calm serenity whatever You see fit to lay upon me. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.
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