p. 773 | THE DEVOTIONAL HABIT

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

THE DEVOTIONAL HABIT.

"How will I ever get through this day?" said one at an early morning hour, anticipating for that particular day an unusual amount of care and trial. These words were uttered with no misleading ignorance in respect to divine Providence, only with an unmindfulness, at that moment, of infinite love and watchcare. Soon afterward, at the morning hour of family worship, there came a sweet sense of Christ's love and strength, and then the shrinking soul was enabled to go forth with courage to meet successfully the work of life. It was not, we may suppose, any willful distrust of God that occasioned the above remark, but only the temporary suspension of a conscious devotional habit.

How common is such an experience! And because it is so universal we come to think that deliverance from the unreflecting habit is something quite impossible in this life; whereas God would have his servants possess such an elevation of Christian character that, absorbed as they must necessarily be in the affairs of this life, they still will have a secret reliance upon himself all the time—a substratum of holy confidence, a quiet strength and joy! Everyone should so live as always to say with each opening day, "God does keep me and does help me to meet every duty and trial."—Selected.