Greetings sis Reis, et al;
As a man ages (if he has any spiritual understanding at all) he
cannot help but review his life and the folly and vanity of it. Where
have the years gone? As we read Watts' hymn the other day, _"Time what
an empty vapor tis_." we are reminded how short life upon this Earth
is. We do live our lives as a tale that is told. Time does not seem so
precious until it is past and we reflect upon it. The last twenty years
of my life seem to have flown by so quickly that sometimes it seems more
like a dream that dies at dawn than it does reality. How little of my
time has been spent in profitable pursuits compared to the vanity and
folly with which it is mingled. Apart from the promise of Eternal LIFE,
we should be brought to despair. Yet HE who created time and made us
creatures of it can indeed restore the years that the cankerworm hath
eaten and give us great joy with each year that passes by. How great is
HIS mercy towards those whom HE loves! I am blessed in reading mr
Hawker's contemplations upon Jacob's lament./ "Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house
are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may
be also." (John 14:1-3/)
Blessings, mike
On 12/28/2022 2:20 PM, Soraya Reis wrote:
*"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!"*
*Robert Hawker (1753-1827 *
