361. Saturday after Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Psalm 139, 13-18. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works: and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect: and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
❦
Truly the Lord has fashioned man wonderfully and gloriously. Deep is the great sea, deeper still the depths of space; but yet more deep is the spirit of man. Our body is curiously and beautifully fashioned. The eye, the ear, the tongue, all members great and small; with what marvelous nicety have they not been formed! Could any human ingenuity have invented and adjusted the processes of respiration, digestion, or any other of the vital functions? And yet what is all this as compared with the wonders of the soul, the spirit, which God breathed into us from the beginning? Here are understanding and memory with their ever increasing powers; the will, which no force can bend, but which can bend itself, when it is in a healthy state; the conscience, this heavenly witness; the heart, which can give itself, can love, can receive into itself the love divine, and be united with God in liberty most glorious and bonds most beautiful. All this hast thou, O God, designed from eternity; and thy thoughts and thy will wrought me curiously in secret, in my mother’s womb. — As thou hast wonderfully wrought me, so thou dost wonderfully lead me, in ways which not I, but thou, my God, hast found. I am fallen, and my form has been disordered; but thou dost heal me, and lead me in the paths of salvation; thou hast destined me to eternal life, and thou dost give me this life. Thou dost care for me in all things; nothing befalls me without thy counsel; never for one day, for a single moment, dost thou abandon me. “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. The darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day.”
This will we ponder, dear reader! We must marvel at the wisdom and power of the Lord, and his infinite goodness toward us; it follows us always; shall we not always praise it? In his arms we fall asleep at night, and in them we awake in the morning. When we go to rest, and when we rise from our couch, we are with the Lord; we are near him always with soul and body. We dwell in the Lord’s house, we eat at his table; with him we labor, and with him we rest; with him we live, and with him we die. Blessed every man who knows thee, O Lord! Thy mercy is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep. How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Blessed be thy glorious name forever! Amen.*
Plenteous grace with thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of thee:
Spring thou up within my heart,
Rise, to all eternity.
[TLH 345 (listen here); alt. ELH 209]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.