Thought for the day

A few months back I was reading through a wonderful book by Rev. John Newton (author of Amazing Grace). The book is entitled: Out of the Depths and is an autobiography, written in a series of 14 "letters" to his friend the Rev. T. Haweis; these letters were first published in 1764, and so the verbiage may seem unusual to our ears, but nonetheless enlightening! I was very much encouraged by this little book, it is fairly bursting with nuggets of gold, and he writes in such an inspiring way! This particular quote that I am going to share with you today is taken from the back of the book, under a section entitled Some remarks made by Newton in Familiar Conversation.



"Sometimes I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of *fagots, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once; He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we chose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to our load, before we are required to bear it."



[*Editor's note: According to Webster's 1828 Dictionary a fagot was: "a bundle of sticks, twigs or small branches of trees, used for fuel, or for raising batteries, filling ditches, and other purposes in fortification. The French use fascine, from the Latin, fascis, a bundle."] -Abby