[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-1223":3},"DECEMBER 23\r\nThe journey is too great for thee (1 Kings 19.7).\r\nAnd what did God do with His tired servant? Gave him something good to eat and put him to sleep. Elijah had done splendid work, and had\r\nrun alongside of the chariot in his excitement, and it had been too\r\nmuch for his physical strength, and the reaction had come on, and\r\nhe was depressed. The physical needed to be cared for. What many\r\npeople want is sleep, and the physical ailment attended to. There\r\nare grand men and women who get where Elijah was-under the juniper tree! and it comes very soothingly to such to hear the words of the\r\nMaster. \"The journey is too great for thee, and I am going to\r\nrefresh you.\" Let us not confound physical weariness with spiritual weakness.\r\nI'm too tired to trust and too tired to pray,\r\nSaid one, as the over-taxed strength gave way.\r\nThe one conscious thought by my mind possessed, Is, oh, could I just drop it all and rest.\r\nWill God forgive me, do you suppose, If I go right to sleep as a baby goes,    Without an asking if I may,\r\nWithout ever trying to trust and pray?\r\nWill God forgive you? why think, dear heart, When language to you was an unknown art, Did a mother deny you needed rest,\r\nOr refuse to pillow your head on her breast?\r\nDid she let you want when you could not ask? Did she set her child an unequal task?\r\nOr did she cradle you in her arms,\r\nAnd then guard your slumber against alarms?\r\nAh, how quick was her mother love to see, The unconscious yearnings of infancy.\r\nWhen you've grown too tired to trust and pray,    When over-wrought nature has quite given way:\r\n\r\nThen just drop it all, and give up to rest,\r\nAs you used to do on mother's breast,\r\nHe knows all about it-the dear Lord knows, So just go to sleep as a baby goes;\r\nWithout even asking if you may,\r\nGod knows when His child is too tired to pray. He judges not solely by uttered prayer,\r\nHe knows when the yearnings of love are there.\r\nHe knows you do pray, He knows you do trust,    And He knows, too, the limits of poor weak dust. Oh, the wonderful sympathy of Christ,\r\nFor His chosen ones in that midnight tryst,\r\nWhen He bade them sleep and take their rest,\r\nWhile on Him the guilt of the whole world pressed\r\nYou've given your life up to Him to keep, Then don't be afraid to go right to sleep.  --Ella Conrad Cowherd.",1783499794290]