The Thoughts of God by John MacDuff,
1864 How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is
the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would
outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with
you. Psalm 139, 1718 The thoughts of a great man on
earth, how valued! With what feeling, then, shall
we ponder the thoughts of God? We treasure the thoughts of the
wise and the good for their own sake, but how is their value
enhanced when they are personal and have a special reference
to ourselves? These thoughts of God are thoughts
towards us. I know the thoughts that I think
towards you, your thoughts which are to us. How precious also
are your thoughts unto me, O God!" We perused with additional interest
the diary, the recorded thoughts of those with whom while living,
we interchanged hallowed friendships, and whose regard and love we
had been privileged to enjoy. In opening the divine diary,
Unfolding the divine thoughts as these are recorded in sacred
scripture, we have the elevating assurance, This great being loves
me, pities me, carries me on his heart. If it is consoling
to be much in the thoughts of a revered earthly friend, then
what must it be to occupy the thoughts of one better than the
best, more loving than the most loving human relative? An earthly
father writes his son in a distant land. You are never absent from
my thoughts. Such, too, is the comforting
declaration of our Father in Heaven. The humblest and loneliest
of His children on earth can say, I am poor and needy, yet
the Lord thinks upon me. In one sense, we are everywhere
surrounded with God's thoughts. The world of nature is a majestic
volume of God's thoughts. His sublime thoughts are the
everlasting mountains, His lofty thoughts the distant stars, His
dreadful thoughts the lightning and tempest, the earthquake and
volcano. His minute thoughts of discriminating
care the tiny moss and lichen, the tender grass, the lily of
the field and pearly dewdrop. His loving thoughts, the blue
sky, the quiet lake, the sunny glade, The budding blossoms and
beauteous flowers, His joyful thoughts, the singing streams
and sparkling waves, His unchanging thoughts, the rock in mid-ocean,
On which the waves are in vain spending their fury. But it is
not in these mute, undefined, often mysterious symbols that
sinners, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, can discover the true
divine breathings and utterances of the very heart of a reconciled
Father. He has, in these last days, spoken
unto us by His Son. It is in Christ that each thought
of God becomes precious. a ministering angel of comfort
and hope, a deep pool of unfathomable grace and love, reflecting the
image and the peace of heaven. Jesus is the true Ladder of Jacob,
upon which thoughts upon thoughts of unutterable tenderness fled
down from the upper sanctuary. The Father is represented in
an impressive figure as confiding to him one blessed thought after
another, that he may speak them as words in season to him that
is weary. And how precious are these thoughts
of God! Well may he say regarding them,
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Infinite,
immutable, everlasting, a glorious chime carrying their echoes from
eternity to eternity, We may try to form whatever estimate
of them we may. They far transcend our loftiest
imaginings. Now, says the Apostle, unto him
that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
can ask or think. God loves and treasures even
our poor thoughts of Him. A book of remembrance was written
for those who feared the Lord and who thought upon His name.
Oh, how should we cherish and garner His ineffable thoughts
towards us! we should take them to solve
our doubts, calm our fears, soothe our sorrows, hush our misgivings. It may be to smooth our sick
pillows or our death pillows. These, like tremulous music in
some hollow time-honored sanctuary, floating on the entranced ear,
have fallen with their heavenly vibrations on many a downcast,
mourning, troubled, pensive spirit, and woke it up to hope and confidence,
peace and joy. This has been the experience
of believers in every age. In the multitude of my thoughts
within me, your comforts, your comforting thoughts, delight
my soul. With the devout psalmist, these
thoughts seem to have formed the theme of morning meditation.
For he adds, in our motto verse, When I awake, I am still with
you. What is man? exclaims a saint
of an older age still, that you should magnify him, and that
you should set your heart upon him, and that you should visit
him every morning. In this little volume of daily
devotional readings, we have been able only to make a brief
selection from these precious thoughts. Many, truly many, O
Lord my God, are the wonders You have done. The things You
planned for us, no one can recount to You. Were I to speak and tell
of them, they would be too many to declare. But may these few
sparks of living fire, a handful of burning coals taken from the
holy altar, serve to kindle the fuel or brighten the flame of
the morning, or it may be evening sacrifice. Nothing surely can
serve better to quicken faith and animate love, to mitigate
grief and disarm temptation, to temper and moderate life's
anxieties and engrossments, to sweeten our earthly joys, to
hollow our earthly sorrows, to elevate and dignify our earthly
pursuits. than to go forth to the world,
climbing its mountains of toil and descending its valleys of
care, preoccupied and solemnized with a thought of God.