December 5

Twentieth Thursday after Trinity

Let the people renew their strength. Isaiah 41:1.

TRY not to be slack or downcast, kindle your energies, renew your efforts, and beware of growing disgusted with duties to which you are pledged; remember that you must overcome besetting sins; you must grow in holiness and find out God and persevere. If nature grows weary, still do not be impatient or irritable. Keep yourself calm, bethink you that what we cannot do to-day we may accomplish to-morrow; plod on faithfully and trustfully; be more than ever diligent in doing all that is right; gather yourself more carefully together; let your longings after God be more earnest, and thus draw fresh strength out of your weakness, and let the temptation to be disheartened and to give up be a stimulus to renewed but patient exertion. Be like the sick folk who sat round the pool of Bethesda, waiting for the Angel to come and trouble the waters, and, like them, you will be healed. There can be no progress without this waiting. One may even dare to say that God cannot withhold Himself from the soul which waits lovingly upon Him. He yearns over it, and will not fail to give Himself to its desires. But He accepts the heart's cravings, which are often the measure of love; He tests the sincerity of our desires thereby—of our real will to conquer faults—our real determination to stand at the door and knock until it be opened to us. It will be open at last, never fear.

E'en now the shadows break and gleams Divine Edge the dim distant line.

Thou shalt prevail!