Thank you, God, for this night. How blessed I have been today as your hand led my life. I come to you now with a heart of praise and thanksgiving. God of sunsets and life, be in my heart and on my lips this night. Let me praise you in my waking and sleeping moments. And allow me to rest in your peace and grace, so I may be refreshed in your Spirit. Grant me sleep that tomorrow I may be your Light in the world. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
It is a primary truth of Christianity that God reaches us directly. No person is insulated. As ocean floods the inlets, as sunlight environs the plant, so God enfolds and enwreathes the finite spirit. There is this difference, however, inlet and plant are penetrated whether they will or not. Sea and sunshine crowd themselves in a tergo. Not so with God. He can be received only through appreciation and conscious appropriation. He comes only through doors that are purposely opened for him. A person may live as near God as the bubble is to the ocean and yet not find him. He may be “closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet,” and still be missed. Historical Christianity is dry and formal when it lacks the immediate and inward response to our Great Companion; but our spirits are trained to know him, to appreciate him, by the mediation of historical revelation. A person’s spiritual life is always dwarfed when cut apart from history. Mysticism is empty unless it is enriched by outward and historical revelation. The supreme education of the soul comes through an intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ of history.
Rufus M. Jones
1 There’s a voice in the wilderness crying,
a call from the ways untrod:
Prepare in the desert a highway,
a highway for our God!
The valleys shall be exalted,
the lofty hills brought low;
make straight all the crooked places
where the Lord, our God, may go!
2 O Christians, you bring good tidings;
get up to the heights and sing!
Proclaim to a desolate people
the coming of their King.
Like the flow’rs of the field they perish;
like grass our works decay.
The pow’r and pomp of nations
shall pass like a dream away.
3 But the Word of our God is eternal;
the arm of our God is strong.
He stands in the midst of the nations,
and he shall right the wrong.
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,
the lambs shall gently hold,
to pastures of peace shall lead them,
and bring them to his fold.
Andy
livingwaters67 
