Psalms 39:4. LORD, make me to know mine end,
That is what you and I are apt to say when we get into a little trouble; we want to die, and get away from it all. We say that we long to be with Christ, but I am afraid that it is often only a lazy wish to share the spoils of victory without fighting the battle, to receive the saints’ wages without doing the saints’ work, and to enter into heaven without the toils and dangers of the pilgrims’ way. Perhaps this has been the case with us sometimes when we have thought that our aspirations were of the best and holiest kind. When David prayed, "Lord, make me to know mine end," his prayer was not a very wise one, but the next sentences were not quite so foolish:--
Psalms 39:4. And the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.
Oh, that we could all know how frail we are! But we reckon upon living for years when we have scarcely many more minutes left, we think our life’s hour-glass is full when the sands have almost run out, and although the hand of God’s great clock may be upon the striking-point, we think our brief hour has but just begun.
Psalms 39:4. LORD, make me to know mine end,
That is what you and I are apt to say when we get into a little trouble; we want to die, and get away from it all. We say that we long to be with Christ, but I am afraid that it is often only a lazy wish to share the spoils of victory without fighting the battle, to receive the saints’ wages without doing the saints’ work, and to enter into heaven without the toils and dangers of the pilgrims’ way. Perhaps this has been the case with us sometimes when we have thought that our aspirations were of the best and holiest kind. When David prayed, "Lord, make me to know mine end," his prayer was not a very wise one, but the next sentences were not quite so foolish:--
Psalms 39:4. And the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.
Oh, that we could all know how frail we are! But we reckon upon living for years when we have scarcely many more minutes left, we think our life’s hour-glass is full when the sands have almost run out, and although the hand of God’s great clock may be upon the striking-point, we think our brief hour has but just begun.