"Watch ye therefore, and pray always." --- Luke 21:36.
"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." --- Hebrews 12:1.
The hearts of men are not like unto clocks, which only want to be wound up once a day. Oh no! the dullness and distractions are too great and dangerous. We must lift them up many times a day, yea, watch continually to lay aside every weight. Our going out and coming in, nay, all things, even the very least, we must do with prayer, always strictly examining what is the will of the Lord; else, if they are done after our own will, they do not tend to the glory of God, and cannot be attended with his blessing.
But if we earnestly strive against our own will in prayer, patiently suffering every hour what the Lord thinks proper to lay upon us, and will be ruled by his hints and slight stroke of his rod, many heavy afflictions and scourges, and whips may be avoided; for the burdens which we bring upon ourselves, by our own will and impatience, are always the heaviest. A Christian has daily his proper burden, like a clock its weights, by which the flesh is kept under, so that the spirit can rise up; therefore, when anything comes cross, he looks upon it as his weight for the day, to stir him up to exercises of prayer and meditation in the word of God. O Lord, grant that I may always bear thy easy yoke, and never be the cause of my own distress and dullness.
Wait on the Lord, ye trembling saints,
And keep your courage up;
He'll raise your spirit when it faints,
And far exceeds your hope.