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This prayer includes the striking request, "Be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble." The words suggest the pertinent and not unprofitable question - Are we laid under greater obligation by the lesser mercies of God which we are continually receiving, or by the larger ones which we occasionally receive at his hands? We look at both -

I. THE LESSER MERCIES WE ARE CONTINUALLY RECEIVING. God is to us "our Arm every morning;" he is our support from day to day, from hour to hour; "in him we live and move and have our being." We may pass many days in which no striking or impressive mercy is bestowed upon us; but we pass no single hour, we spend no fleeting minute, in which some kindnesses do not come from his bountiful hand. Our indebtedness arising from these may be estimated when we consider:

1. Their regularity. The nature of God's kindnesses is commonly missed by reason of their regularity; they are referred to "law," as if law had any power, in itself, to originate or to sustain. Consequently, they are not traced, as they certainly should be, to the love and care of a Heavenly Father. But their value is immeasurably enhanced by their regularity. How much more "gracious unto us" is our God in that he is "our arm every morning!" in that we can confidently reckon on the morning light, on the evening shadows, on the incoming and outgoing tides, on the returning seasons, and can arrange and act accordingly, than if the Author of nature gave us his blessings irregularly, spasmodically, at such uncertain intervals that we could make no arrangements, and hold no permanent offices, and be in constant doubt as to whether or when our agency would be required!

2. Their constancy. We are leaning on God's arm continually. It is not merely a matter of frequency; it is not by a permissible hyperbole that the psalmist says, "the goodness of God endureth continually (Psalm 52:1); nor is it without reason that he asks of God that his loving-kindness and his truth may continually preserve him" (Psalm 40:11). Every year God is crowning with his goodness; he "daily loadeth us with benefits;" he is our arm every morning of our life; each night he lays his hand upon us in sleep and "restores our soul." We may well join in singing -

"The wings of every hour shall bear
Some thankful tribute to thine ear." For on the wings of every passing hour come many mercies to our hearts and to our homes from the protecting and providing love of God; and we may go yet further and say, or sing, "Minutes came fast, but mercies were more fast and fleet than they." God's creative power gives us our life, and his constant visitation preserves our spirit (Job 10:12).

II. THE LARGER MERCIES WE SOMETIMES RECEIVE. God is" our salvation also in the time of trouble." The greatness of our indebtedness to him for these his larger, his especial and peculiar loving-kindnesses, we may estimate if we consider:

1. Their frequency. Though infrequent as compared with his constant favors, yet they are not infrequent in themselves, if we count them all - national, ecclesiastical, family, individual.

2. Their exceeding preciousness to us who receive them. Who can reckon the worth of one single deliverance from

(1) the gulf of black disbelief; or from

(2) the power of some unholy passion - avarice, or lust, or revenge; or from

(3) the misery of some threatened loneliness or (what is far worse than that) some entangling and ruinous alliance; or from

(4) the dark shadow of some false and cruel slander? Only they who have been thus saved in the time of trouble, who have been lifted up and placed on the solid rock of safety, and made to walk again in the sunshine of peace and hope, can say how great is that mercy from the hand of God.

3. Their costliness to the Divine Giver.

(1) If in all human sympathy there is an expenditure of self, which, though most willingly rendered, is yet painful and oppressive to the spirit, shall we not think that there is this element also in him whose sympathy is so much stronger, and whose sensibility is so much finer than ours (see Isaiah 63:9; Luke 19:41; John 11:35; Hebrews 4:15)?

(2) One great redemptive act - the salvation which is in Christ Jesus - was wrought at the cost of a Divine incarnation, of sorrow, of shame, of death, tie gave himself for us. We conclude that,

(a) taking this last thought into account, the special mercies of God do incalculably outweigh the constant ones;

(b) that together they constitute an overwhelming reason for worship, for obedience, for consecration;

(c) that we do well to appeal to God in earnest prayer for the special mercies we need, and to wait expectantly for them. "O Lord, be thou gracious unto us; we have waited for thee." - C.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.

WEB: Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.