p. 3 | Renewed Strength

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 5, 1865

Renewed Strength.

You are tired. Perhaps you have been hard at work all day till your weary bones ache. Well there is the arm-chair, the well supplied table, the comfortable bed: you can rest, and be strong again.

But it is your mind that is tired. You have studied too long, and thought too much; and so your ideas become confused. Go and enjoy the woods or the sea-shore, or walk out under the quiet stars. You will rest, and be strong again.

But perhaps it is neither body nor mind which is weary, and yet you are tired. Your heart and soul and spirit are weary of their strife with sin within, and evil without. Then go to Him who calls the heavy-laden, and he will give you rest. Go to your closet, and pray; and you will be strong again.

All our work on earth is done against resistance, as all motion is carried on against friction.

Physical effort is continually opposed by weight and inertia, by obstructions which consume the strength; and a man can not work with hands or feet, with nerve or muscle, without a constant renewal of his bodily energies. God has provided the means for this renewal in food and sleep.

Mental effort must militate against lassitude. The brain grows weary, and refuses to grapple with the difficulties which lie before it; and man must renew his vigor of mind by change and recreation.

Spiritual effort has to contend against depression and discouragement; and if man's bodily strength needs renewal in contending with the forces of Nature, and his mental energy needs renewal in its conflict with "this fleshhood," which else "as a soaked and sucking vesture would drag us down," much more does our soul's strength and courage need renewal in wrestling "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." And provision is made also for this greater need, even "waiting on the Lord," that is, prayer, whereby the soul casts off its weariness, and comes into fellowship with the Almighty.

Let me transcribe Dean Trench's beautiful sonnet:

"Lord, what a change within us one short hour, Spent in thy presence, will prevail to make! What heavy burdens from our bosoms take! What parched ground refresh us with a shower! We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; We rise, and all, the distance and the near, Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear; We kneel how weak! we rise how full of power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others,—that we are not always strong; That we are even overborne with care; That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, while with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with thee?"