Margaret Bird Steinmetz

Daily Prayer Guide

Trust in Jehovah, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness.
~ Ps 37:3

’Tis weary watching wave by wave,  
And yet the tide heaves onward;  
We climb, like corals, grave by grave,  
That pave a pathway sunward.  
We’re driven back, for our next fray  
A newer strength to borrow;  
And where the vanguard camps to-day,  
The rear shall rest to-morrow.
~ Gerald Massey

Be like the bird, that, pausing in her flight  
A while on boughs too slight,  
Feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings,  
Knowing that she hath wings.
~ Victor Hugo

Prayer

Eternal God, help me to realize that life is not only endless but, whether I live in love and obedience, or wait in neglect and indifference, that I can never separate myself from thee. May I be diligent in worthy endeavors to do my best for thee. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; Thy judgments are a great deep: O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.
~ Ps 36:6

Since it is Providence that determines the fates of men, their inner nature is thus brought into unison. There is such harmony, as in all things of nature, that one might explain the whole without referring to a higher Providence. But this only proves the more clearly and certainly this higher Providence, which has given existence to this harmony.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt

The good mariner, when he draws near the port, furls his sails and enters it softly; so ought we to lower the sails of our worldly operations, and turn to God with all heart and understanding.
~ Dante

My Father in heaven, may I hear thy voice to-day! May I be quiet as I listen to thee. Above the clamor of the crowd may I hear thee calling me. May I hear thee in my joys and in my sorrows; in my work and in my leisure. May I listen to thee oftener, that I may be familiar with thy ways. Amen.
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Daily Prayer Guide

Boast not thyself of to-morrow; For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
~ Prov 27:1

The busy world shoves angrily aside  
The man who stands with arms akimbo set  
Until occasion tells him what to do;  
And he who waits to have his task marked out  
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
~ James Russell Lowell

Awake, arise! the hour is late!  
Angels are knocking at thy door!  
They are in haste and cannot wait,  
And once departed come no more.
~ Henry W. Longfellow

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Daily Prayer Guide

He is like a man building a house, who digged and went deep, and laid a foundation upon the rock: and when a flood arose, the stream brake against that house, and could not shake it: because it had been well builded. 
~ Luke 6:48

Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cooperates, and therefore it is not in vain. If a man believes and expects great things of himself it makes no odds where you put him, he will be surrounded by grandeur.

~ Henry David Thoreau

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost—that is where they should be: now put foundations under them.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Prayer

Lord of strength, I pray that while I may lay a strong foundation for my life, I may remember that I should not delay the building by neglecting to complete the plans. May I look to-day and see if I am making my words stronger than my life. With thy wisdom help me to realize that the test of life is made with the soul. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.
~ Isa 35:3-4

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. Sorrow is a kind of rust in the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.
~ Dr. Johnson

We may be sure that one principle will hold throughout the whole pursuit of thoughtful happiness, the principle that the best way to secure future happiness is to be as happy as is rightfully possible to-day. To secure any desirable capacity for the future, near or remote, cultivate it to-day. What would be the use of immortality for a person who cannot use well half an hour? asks Emerson.
~ Charles W. Eliot

Loving Father, help me that I may realize the depth of thy love. If I may be discouraged over my failures, speak to me hopefully and lead me out where I may find the right way to succeed. May I not be kept in sorrow, but find each day the happiness that brings a thankful heart. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
~  Luke 2:52

He who plants a tree  
Plants a hope.  
Rootlets up through fibers blindly grope,  
Leaves unfold unto horizons free.  
So man’s life must climb  
From the clods of time  
Unto heavens sublime.  
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,  
What the glory of the boughs shall be?
~ Lucy Larcom

Very early, I perceived that the object of life is to grow.
~ Margaret Fuller

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
~ George Henry Lewes

Almighty God, thy power is so great I cannot express it; help me to comprehend the meaning of it, that I may feel more profoundly thy expectations of my life. May I remember that to forget that life is eternal may make me to lose all it has grown. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
~ Jas 1:27

If one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, methinks that sweet and wonderful thing sympathy is not less powerful. What golden barriers, what ice of centuries, it can melt in a moment!
~ Charles Reade

If I had two loaves of bread, I would sell one to buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.
~ Mohammed

What do you live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
– George Eliot

My Father, help me to understand that kind hearts and willing hands are made possible by the depth and greatness of thy love. May I possess the spirit of forgiveness and consideration, that I may not hold prejudice and revenge, but help with sympathy and tenderness. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest.

~ Exod 23:12

This is the gospel of labor, ring it,  
Ye bells of the kirk
The Lord of Love came down from above  
To live with the men who work.  
This is the rose he planted, here  
In the thorn-cursed soil;  
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but  
The blessing of earth is toil.
~ Henry van Dyke

No man is born into the world whose work  
Is not born with him. There is always work  
And tools to work withal, for those who will;  
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
~ James Russell Lowell

My Father, I pray for the love of work, and the desire to cultivate life. Stir me, that I may be ambitious. May I not stare at life in an everyday way and forget that others are watching for the surprises. Help me to be considerate and kind in all that I do. Amen.

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Streams in The Desert

Eternal Glory Struggles

I endure all things for the sake of God’s own people; so that they also may obtain salvation…and with it eternal glory

~ 2 Tim 2:10

If Job could have known as he sat there in the ashes, bruising his heart on this problem of Providence that in the trouble that had come upon him he was doing what one man may do to work out the problem for the world, he might again have taken courage. No man lives to himself. Job’s life is but your life and mine written in larger text….So, then, though we may not know what trials wait on any of us, we can believe that, as the days in which Job wrestled with his dark maladies are the only days that make him worth remembrance, and but for which his name had never been written in the book of life, so the days through which we struggle, finding no way, but never losing the light, will be the most significant we are called to live.

~ Robert Collyer

Who does not know that our most sorrowful days have been amongst our best? When the face is wreathed in smiles and we trip lightly over meadows bespangled with spring flowers, the heart is often running to waste.

The soul which is always blithe and gay misses the deepest life. It has its reward, and it is satisfied to its measure, though that measure is a very scanty one. But the heart is dwarfed; and the nature, which is capable of the highest heights, the deepest depths, is undeveloped; and life presently burns down to its socket without having known the resonance of the deepest chords of joy.

“Blessed are they that mourn.” Stars shine brightest in the long dark night of winter. The gentians show their fairest bloom amid almost inaccessible heights of snow and ice.

God’s promises seem to wait for the pressure of pain to trample out their richest juice as in a wine-press. Only those who have sorrowed know how tender is the “Man of Sorrows.”

~ Selected

Thou hast but little sunshine, but thy long glooms are wisely appointed thee; for perhaps a stretch of summer weather would have made thee as a parched land and barren wilderness. Thy Lord knows best, and He has the clouds and the sun at His disposal. 

~ Selected

“It is a gray day.” “Yes, but dinna ye see the patch of blue?”

~ Scotch Shoemaker
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Daily Prayer Guide

They help every one his neighbor; and every one saith to his brother, Be of good courage.
~ Isa 41:6

Who cares for the burden, the night, and the rain,  
And the long, steep, lonesome road,  
When at last through the darkness a light shines plain,  
When a voice calls “Hail,” and a friend draws rein,  
With an arm for the stubborn load?  
  
For life is the chance of a friend or two  
This side of the journey’s goal.  
Though the world be a desert the long night through,  
Yet the gay flowers bloom and the sky shows blue  
When a soul salutes a soul.
– Unknown

In all misfortune the greatest consolation is a sympathizing friend.
– Cervantes

Prayer

Loving Father, may I lay hold upon the highest standards of friendship and so be qualified to be a friend. May those who call and lean on me feel secure in my support. May none ever be ashamed to call me friend. Grant that those whom I love may keep faith with me. Amen.

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