DAILY BLESSINGS by Elliot C. Chapman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 43.

DAILY BLESSINGS.

By Elliot C. Chapman

BY ELLIOT C. CHAPMAN.

IN the daily recurring blessings of sunshine and shadow are shown the love of a heavenly Father who continues to shower his mercies upon the just and the unjust with a liberality so broad that it reaches the world around. Though oft forgetful of his loving-kindness, and sometimes willfully disobedient of his entreaties, the Lord has not left his children to shift for themselves, as justice might allow, a band of rebels on a desert shore, but sends, along with other mercies, shower and sunbeam, to keep alive the face of nature. By such gracious gifts life is maintained and probation extended, with the way left open of attaining to the life that is to come.

As the seasons come and go with apparent regularity, and the cycle of "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear," is repeated o'er and o'er, we are prone to attribute it all to natural laws, without giving glory to the God of nature, whose power is the very essence of these laws, and whose love prompts their exercise.

As to what portion of our blessings are derived from the One who notes the sparrow's fall, let us read what the Scriptures testify: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1: 17. Again we read, "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from Heaven." John 3: 27.

While with each of us there is a continual reception of unmerited favors, our course need not be like the dumb brute, which fills its stomach with food and utters no word of thanks. On the contrary, we should be "giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Eph. 5: 20.

Though poor, afflicted, and tossed about on life's restless sea, there is no one so poor but what he has, or may have, in our blessed Saviour, something to fill the heart with overflowing thanks and transform the thorns into flowers and the stumbling-stones of life's journey into stepping-stones heavenward.