Daily blessings, direct from the Lord's own hand, are so numerous, and so constantly and regularly supplied, that we forget that they are daily, hourly gifts from the Lord's mercy. We live. He gives us life. We breathe—and every instant breathe the air that God alone can form. "He formed the earth and made it;" for our abode. He forms our food, and "gives us water of the rain of heaven." Without all these we could not be. Were he to withhold either, we should perish. He gives the days and seasons in their order, and all for us. If the Lord should sometimes forget us as we forget Him; if He should forget to make the sun rise as often as we forget to thank him for its light; if he should forget to send the shower, and make the grass grow, and the harvest to ripen, as often as we forget that they are His gifts to us, the last woe would be accomplished upon a thankless world. We forget to read His Word—forget to pray to Him, forget to keep his commandments, forget to teach our children by precept and example to worship and obey Him, forget at meals to thank Him for our daily bread, forget His Sabbaths; are tardy and habitually behind time in assembling at His house for Sabbath worship; forget to love Him, and to deal justly with our fellow men, and then are discontented and half-angry if we do not receive at His hand all that our vain wishes crave! Were the Lord to deal by us, as we deal by Him, and by each other, how little should we have! We receive our "daily bread," only because "His mercy endureth forever."
The fact that the Lord in His mercy operates by means, obscures our vision to the fact that He operates at all. And yet I doubt—if every morning bread and fruits and choicest dishes dropped down from heaven on our tables—if then we would for any length of time think of them as the Lord's gifts. A few days, and it would be an old story—a common thing—expected as a matter of course. Is our daily bread less the direct gift of the Lord to us, because his mercy gives it as a reward to industry? He formed the bed of the mould, he gave the seed. He gives the sun to warm, and the shower to fructify. He is the great chemist who formed the universe a mighty laboratory, wherein to work the wondrous changes we behold. Is he less God, and less our God, and less the giver of our daily bread, because he forms it for us before our eyes, and allows our aid in doing it? Does he less give the luscious fruit, because he allows the trees to grow and blossom, and bear its rich burthen within our garden, to bless our eyes with its beauty? Is bread the less his gift because he lets it grow in our fields, to adorn the earth and beautify the landscape with its green glades and golden waves?—Did you ever think how desolate the world would be if God formed all our food and clothes in heaven and hung them in our wardrobe, or dropped our food every morning, ready cooked, upon our tables? No green fields, no fruitful trees; no flocks, no herds! A bold and barren desert would meet our deadened sense on every side! How pleased are children, and how grateful to their teacher, when he invites them to his study, his museum, or his laboratory and exhibits to them his experiments in chemistry; and how proud and pleased the boy who may be permitted to assist in some of the more easy and simple acts. Is he not more grateful for the honored privilege too? And yet how strange that men complain because the God of chemistry works out his wonders before their eyes, and honors them by giving them some easy parts to do.