Here, O our Lord, we see you face to face.
Here would we touch and handle things unseen,
here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
and all our weariness upon you lean.
Here would we feed upon the bread of God,
here drink with you the royal cup of heaven;
here would we lay aside each earthly load,
and taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
-Horatio Bonar
Veiled is the future before me;
Life’s checkered pathway I climb,
God in his goodness revealing
Only one step at a time.
Will the tomorrow be clouded?
Will it bring sunshine for me?
Let me lean harder, dear Saviour,
Let me lean harder on thee.
Sometime, I’ll come to the valley,
Where a grim shadow is thrown;
No human friend can go with me,
Leave me, O Lord, not alone!
Till that bright, beautiful morning,
When all the darkness shall flee,
Let me lean harder, dear Saviour,
Let me lean harder on thee.
by eliza e. hewitt 1851-1920
We feel the resurrection near,
our life in Christ concealed,
and with His glorious presence here
our earthen vessels filled.
O would He more of heaven bestow,
and let the vessels break,
and let our ransomed spirits go
to grasp the God we seek…
by Charles Wesley
At the edge of darkness
He sets up His camp;
Until you know Jesus there
You don´t know Him at all.
There He fights the battle
For our souls
And all the hidden
Enemies
Rise up to meet Him
Certain they will win.
But they are ignorant
Lying in the dark
For years, decades
And have no idea
Who their opponent
Really is.
He is Jesus and He will be
Victorious.
One brown leaf, fallen
to the brown earth: its shadow
fell with it.
* * *
“Be not afraid of these trials which God may see fit to send upon you.
It is with the wind and storm of tribulation that God separates the true wheat from the chaff.
Always remember, therefore, that God comes to you in your sorrows, as really as in your joys.
He lays low, and He builds up.
You will find yourself far from perfection, if you do not find God in everything.”
-Miguel Molinos (1627-1696)
O Lord, when on thy various works we look,
How richly furnish’d is the earth we tread!
Where in the fair contents of Nature’s book
We may the wonders of thy wisdom read…
from “Psalm CIV” by Henry Wotton 1568 – 1639
Lift your eyes, ye lonely watchers,
See the host in raiment white;
List, the strains of heavenly music
Mingling with transcendent light;
Ne’er such music waked a morn;
Sons of men! the Christ is born.
Weary hearts that dwell in darkness,
Cast your dismal fears away;
Lo, the Sun on earth is shining,
For the morn has risen today,
And the light that hailed His birth,
Pours its glory on the earth!
from “Hymns of the Early Church”
Translated by John Brownlie, 1913
He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone
Seems not to work; with such perfection framed
Is this complex, stupendous scheme of things.
But, though concealed, to every purer eye
The informing Author in his works appears:
Chief, lovely Spring, in thee and thy soft scenes
The smiling God is seen- while water, earth,
And air attests his bounty, which exalts
The brute-creation to this finer thought,
And annual melts their undesigning hearts
Profusely thus in tenderness and joy.
From Spring by James Thomson (1700-1748)
keeping the silver points 