the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
December 29—Morning—Joshua 23:14
"Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you."—Joshua 23:14.
Say, my soul, in looking back the past year, canst thou set thy seal to this truth? Is there a promise which thy God hath not fulfilled? Is there an instance in which God hath forfeited his word? Canst thou point to the time, or place, in any one trial, or under any one affliction, in which thou hast not found God faithful? Give then the Lord the honour due unto his name. If not one thing hath failed, proclaim his glory, set forth his praise, declare his truth, let the father to the children make known that God is faithful. And Oh let thine heart bear testimony to what must be said of all his Israel, in all ages, "What hath God wrought."
December 29—Evening—Genesis 47:9
"Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been."—Genesis 47:9.
My soul, in looking back upon thy life, mayest thou not well take up the same language as the patriarch, and confess that "few and evil have thy days been?" Surely the review appears like the heath of a desert, "that knoweth not when good cometh!" Out of Jesus, and considered without an eye to him, there is not a single circumstance of real merit, or of real happiness to be seen. The whole of life, from the days of childhood, through all its intermediate stages, presents but one view "of vanity and vexation of spirit? Precious Jesus! what would the arithmetic of life have been in the now departing year, or in the departure of myself from the world, but for thee? Hadst thou not graciously sought me, when I sought not thee: hadst thou not opened to me" the good old way, trodden by the patriarchs, and guided and held up my feet in following them; had not Jesus been my way, and truth, and life; what a sad conclusion should I now have had to make of the "few and evil days of my pilgrimage?" Blessed Lord I go before me all the remainder of the untrodden paths, and be thou to me "the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night." Bring me, Lord, to the inns of thine ordinances, and to thine house of prayer, and cause me to drink out of "the wells of salvation." Oh! for increasing knowledge of thee, my Lord, and for the increasing enjoyment of thee, that I may "go from strength to strength, until my pilgrimage be over, and I come to appear before my God in Zion!"
