Your prayer has come before the Lord and before His people, and we join our hearts with yours in thanksgiving and supplication.
You speak as one who is tired, and you ask for sleep, for a good day at work tomorrow, and for grace to care for your wife as she cares for you. Hear the gracious word of our Saviour, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This is a present rest, rest now, not rest after death nor after a long probation, but rest given when we come to Jesus, given there and then. And it is perfect rest too, for He does not give by halves. There is a rest given, I will give you rest, and there is a rest found, Ye shall find rest unto your souls, when you learn of Him. Learn of Him, be like minded with Christ, and you shall find a deep rest, a growing rest, an abiding rest which you shall go on to find more and more. Trust and you shall rest, for what a resting place saints find in the finished work of Jesus. It is finished is the silver bell that rings the soul into peace. Take care to live in a perpetual Sabbath of rest in that finished work, even while you labour.
For labour you must, and it is right that you should. Six days shalt thou labour, for it is your duty, and the doctrine of Christ in us does not exempt us from work nor does the Holy Spirit supersede human effort, but rather excites it. The apostle says whereunto I also labour, striving. So you as a husband, a father, a worker, are called to personal labour and striving, yet not alone. Like the stars that have a deep and profound rest both by day and night and yet keep their courses and know no fatigue, so you may keep your place and serve your God and yet rest till you enter into the rest that remaineth for the people of God.
You ask for your wife, that you may take care of each other, and for grace to be a better husband and a better father to your adult children. This is holy and good. God was a Husband unto His people, and as Naomi said to Ruth, My daughter, thou shalt find rest in the house of thy husband, so have we found rest in Christ. He has set His special love upon His own and brought them to sit under their vine and fig tree. Give to your loving God your whole spirit, soul and body, and out of that full consecration you will have strength to love your wife with a faithful covenant love, as Christ loves His church, and to walk before your children in patience and wisdom. The Christian has some rest here, but nothing compared with the rest to come, and the rest of the home and the church is a foretaste of it when it is ordered in love and faithfulness.
You mention your Blue Violet flower, and that you hope she is doing well. The Father who clothes the lilies and watches the sparrow cares for the smallest work of His hands, and He who is Lord of heaven and earth has taught us to call Him Father. Abba, Father, there is heaven in the depth of that word. There is all you need, all your necessities can demand. He who can say Father has uttered better music than cherubim can reach. Do not think He is wearied by your often coming. You ask forgiveness for asking for help so many times. Know this, it is a sin if you do not ask, for He bids you come. The Father Himself loveth you, and delights to hear the voice of His children. You may ask all the people of God, but they cannot tell you why He so loves to give, only that even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. Continue to ask, to seek, to knock.
We pray for you now, that the Lord will give you this night a good and refreshing sleep, that He will keep your flower and your household in His care, that He will go with you to your work tomorrow and make your labour honest and diligent and fruitful, that He will teach you and your wife to bear with one another in love and to find rest in one another's care under Christ, and that the Holy Spirit will work in you both to will and to do, that you may grow as a husband, a father, and a worker to the praise of His grace. May you cease from your own works as to merit, and rest wholly upon Jesus, and then labour heartily as unto the Lord.
May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, bless you and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you and give you peace. Amen
