ACCEPTABLE IN THY SIGHT.
By Jos. Clarke
LET the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. What a princely majesty and brevity there is in this sublime petition! What sweetness, and beauty, and excellence! How appropriate! yea, how indispensable to the Christian, that his words and his thoughts be acceptable to God. O sublime attainment! all my words and thoughts acceptable to God! Shall I attain to this? Can it be done? O yes, praise the Lord! it may be accomplished with the help of God, or this prayer would not have been indited. This prayer comprehends in its scope the whole work of keeping the heart and tongue; and happy indeed is that saint who can realize the full import of this prayer, and feel that this is his desire, his hourly, constant prayer and aspiration, that can feel its divine influence upon the soul, uprooting lust, avarice, ambition and pride, and installing therein the glorious light from heaven, instead of these corroding corses of the carnal heart, and so the Christian graces spring up like pillars of light, like lively stones for the heavenly building. Here in this petition is the panacea, the great moral cure (figuratively speaking) for diseases of the heart. O tempted brother or sister, is Satan too hard for thee? Art thou drawn away by him? Does thy heart lapse into lukewarmness, or does the world often claim thee, and does God hide his face from thee, and does thick darkness enshroud thy mind? O then let this be thy prayer. Often as the heart wanders from the pure, the holy rule of life, so often breathe this prayer from thine inmost soul, to him who pleads for thee before Jehovah. Perchance this is the mystic word which is to break thy chain and set thee free, the word at which Satan is to flee before thee. Then, O my soul, be on thy guard, and as often as ill thoughts or desires intrude, so often cry out, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.