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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. Psalms 121:1. And the mountain shall drop sweet wine. Amos 9:13. The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan. This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in. Psalms 68:15-16. Cfr. Isaiah 2:2; Isaiah 25:6; Micah 4:1.
By this figure, "the hill of God," the Fathers understood sacred prayer, the worship of God in the spirit, because the temple, the dwelling-place of Jehovah, stood on a hill. As prayer is a lifting up, an upward flight of the mind to God, during which all things pertaining to this world are left behind, down in the valley, and the heart is in heaven and, so to spak, dwells on high and in the sanctuary of God, this figure is very appropriate. From these ’’hills" comes all help. They ’’drop sweet wine;" yea, streams of divine blessing, exceeding riches of spiritual good things, flow down from these mountains upon all who strive to raise themselves thither by faith and confidence, with a perfectly undivided mind, there to seek the presence of the Savior. From these hills one never returns empty-handed but always loaded down with the good things of heaven. When we have raised ourselves in the spirit to the hill of earnest prayer and drawn near unto the Lord, it is as though we had been in heaven. Wherefore David prayed, "O, send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy" (Psalms 43:3-4).
Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known:
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!
