Reading: “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”Psalm 119:117

Gracious Father, on this new morning I desire to lean on Your arm—I am compassed about with a great fight of afflictions, and the sorest and saddest of all are my sins. But I fly to You, helper of the helpless. It is mistrust of Him that has been the cause of many a bygone fall. I have been dwelling more on the strength of my temptations than on the strength of my Saviour. Oh, “You hold me up, blessed Jesus! and I shall be safe.” Whenever in the way of sin, give me to realize the all-sufficiency of Your grace. May every hurricane of temptation drive me more under the shelter of the Rock. May the loss of every earthly prop lead me to Yourself—the only abiding refuge. No step in the wilderness journey would I take without You. No enemy would I fear if You are on my side. You hold me up, and then indeed I shall be safe—for time and for eternity.

And the same support I ask for myself, I beseech You to give to all near and dear to me. May the Lord God be their “sun and shield.” May they experience no temptation “above what they are able to bear.” And when all earthly dangers and toils and trials are over, may we all be enabled to meet in glory, and trace there, with adoring gratitude and joy, the way in which Your mercy through life “has held us up.”

I commend myself, body and soul, anew, to You this day. For Your dear Son’s sake, forgive all my sins. My sole trust is in the atoning blood. May I feel this to be the best preservative against temptation and sin, that all I am, and all I have, is not my own, but belongs to the Lord who died for me. Hear these my unworthy supplications, and grant me an answer in peace, for His sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.