If God had merely created us and then left us to ourselves, there would have been some excuse for our forgetting how completely we belong to Him. But we are not like a picture that the artist finishes and then leaves to itself. God continues throughout our whole life the act of creation in the shape of preservation. Without this we should at once lapse into our previous nothingness. We depend upon Him for our being as the rivulet depends on the spring, or the smoke on the fire.

But we not only live in Him, we also move in Him. He co-operates with our every action. We cannot lift a hand or move a finger, unless He not only sanctions the act but actually helps us to perform it. Every breath we breathe, every pulsation of our heart, depends on God's co-operation. How completely dependent we are on Him! How careful should we be that our every action is one suitable to the Divine co-operation!

God does more than this. He not only preserves us, but tends us with watchful care, delivers us from dangers, warns us when we are going wrong, shows a neverfailing interest in us, and an unceasing desire for our happiness. For all this we are dependent on Him! What folly then to neglect one to whom we owe everything.

Pray for a sense of continual dependence on God.

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