Vanity and Vexation of spirit

"Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." -Genesis 47:9 [KJV]

My soul, in looking back upon thy life, mayest thou not well take up the same language as the patriarch, and confess that "few and evil have thy days been?" Surely the review appears like the heath of a desert, "that knoweth not when good cometh!" Out of Jesus, and considered without an eye to Him, there is not a single circumstance of real merit, or of real happiness to be seen. The whole of life, from the days of childhood, through all its intermediate stages, presents but one view "of vanity and vexation of spirit?  

Precious Jesus! what would the arithmetic of life have been in the now departing year, or in the departure of myself from the world, but for thee? Hadst Thou not graciously sought me, when I sought not Thee: hadst Thou not opened to me "the good old way," trodden by the patriarchs, and guided and held up my feet in following them; had not Jesus been my Way, and Truth, and Life; what a sad conclusion should I now have had to make of the "few and evil days of my pilgrimage?" 

Blessed Lord I go before me all the remainder of the untrodden paths, and be Thou to me "the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night." Bring me, Lord, to the inns of Thine ordinances, and to Thine house of prayer, and cause me to drink out of "the wells of salvation." Oh! for increasing knowledge of Thee, my Lord, and for the increasing enjoyment of Thee, that I may "go from strength to strength, until my pilgrimage be over, and I come to appear before my God in Zion!" 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)