Year Book of Daily Devotions — April 13

“I do not practice what I want to do—but I do what I hate!" Romans 7:15”

Think of the brokenness, the incompleteness, the littleness, of these lives of ours! We get glimpses of beauty in character, which we are not able to attain! We have longings which seem to us too great ever to come true. We dream of things we want to do; but when we try to work them out, our clumsy hands cannot put them into realizations! We have glimmerings of a love that is very rich and tender, without a trace of selfishness, without envy or jealousy, without resentment—a love that seeks not its own, is not provoked, and bears all things. We get the vision from the life of Christ Himself. We say, "I will learn that lesson of love; I will be like that!" But we fail.

We strive to be sweet-spirited, unselfish, thoughtful, kind—but we must wet our pillow with tears at the close of our marred days, because we cannot be what we strive to be! We have glimpses of a peace which is very beautiful. We strive after it strive with intense effort—but do not reach it!

So it is in all our living. Life is ever something too large for us. We attain only fragments of living. Yet take heart, "The desire of the righteous shall be granted!" Proverbs 10:24

"We know that when He appears—we shall be like Him!" 1 John 3:2