In the sight of God all thoughts are actions. In the sight of man an action is generally spoken of as something that is overt, and that comes out in the visible or audible life. But God sees all the interior fountains and movements of the Spirit and mind within us, and every voluntary and deliberate thought of our minds are in His sight distinct actions. This opens up a whole world of possibility in the matter of prayer and growth of grace.  

Every time we intelligently and deliberately choose to give up our will and way to God, every time we choose the Divine will for our own, every time we intelligently prefer Christ’s character to that of self, every time we think of God with thoughts of self-renunciation, or adoration, or faith, or worship, or love, He accepts it as a distinct act of the soul.  

What a fertile field our mind can become for the growth of grace! Every single grace of the Christian life can be formulated as a clear, distinct conception in our mind; every single duty of the Christian religion, and every privilege held forth in the promises, can be definitely apprehended in the thought of a true believer. This is doubtless what the Psalmist referred to when he said, “Let the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.”  

It is perhaps impossible to think of God without thinking of Him either lovingly or coldly. People often think of God as unkind, or severe, and often judge Him and His ways and His dealings out of the coldness and unbelief of their own hearts. But how blessed is that state where the soul never thinks of God except with thoughts of love, and submission, and longing to be just like Him! When we have once learned that God is love, we should never think of Him in any way contrary to that fact.  

If every thought is an act, and every time I think of God, I think a tender and loving thought of Him, only think how many such actions I can perform in a day! Regardless of the appearance of things, and of the shape of God’s providences, though we may have severe trials, sore sorrows and grief, though there may come great disappointments from a thousand sources, and though we may suffer much pain in our bodies or mind, yet if we are in such union with God’s will that we never lift our thoughts toward Him except in love, and never view Him or His conduct to us in any light except that of love, this is truly a sacrifice and service well-pleasing in His sight.  

However dark the clouds may seem, however difficult it may be to understand the things in this life, yet it is our privilege, like the soaring eagle, to pierce through the clouds and get on the sunny side of faith. We can always contemplate God from the sunny side of things and not from the earth side. If God can hear every thought of our minds as distinctly as we hear the breakers along the ocean shore, how it would inspire us to fix our minds on Him!  

When we sit down on the ocean shore and listen to the beat of the surf, what a multitude of distinct sounds we hear! The beautiful music of the waters is sliced up into hundreds of various sounds. Their notes are interblended, and sounds glide into each other, from that of the heavy thunder when the roller first breaks to the fine faint treble of the little wavelet that runs up on the sand.  

What a whole orchestra of music is rolled out from one great breaker! And yet all these sounds which palpitated so charmingly upon our ears were started away off on yonder blue sea. It may be that some howling storm or cyclone hundreds of miles out set those waves in motion. The storm passed on and died away, but its motion was imparted to the sea, and we sit calmly in the soft twilight, and listen with enchanted ear to the multitudinous melody which comes to us from those waves. Who could guess that that storm, far out at sea, should make such sweet entertainment and music to us on the shore?  

Thus it is oftentimes in the lives of God’s children. Great storms of sorrow, terrific cyclones of grief and upheavals of heart-anguish on the stormy sea of life, set in motion on human souls great waves of prayer, intense yearnings after God and a home in Heaven, and great waves of meditation on Divine things. These break on the peaceful shore near His throne, and every one of these pathetic thoughts of the heart, these yearning mental prayers, sound distinctly in the ear of God, and make music to Him far more beautiful than the dash of the melodious waves on the beach.  

The great sorrow, the awful storm, has swept on its way and dies in silence along the horizon of life, but it has aroused an immortal mind; it has stirred to the deepest depths a great, yearning heart; it has set in motion successive waves of thinking which will sweep on evermore. Every loving thought that we have towards our Heavenly Father is music in His ears. Let us never think of God hardly or as dealing with severity. Every wrong thought that we have towards God grieves His loving spirit, weakens our faith, chills our affections, impairs our ardor and pleases Satan.  

Let us settle it forever and forever, that God is love, that everything He does or permits, He does in love. It is a blessed habit to go to sleep every night, thinking of God with thoughts of affection and adoration and yearnings after Him, and to wake up every morning with loving thoughts of that Infinite One, in Whose arms we have passed the unconscious night.  

When anything sad or painful comes to us, or a temptation assaults, it is blessed to turn our thoughts instantly towards God. We seek to find His presence in it, and to get a loving view of Him first of all, so that we can see in the very beginning of everything painful or sorrowful that our Heavenly Father is in this thing; His presence envelopes it and He is love. When the outcome of it is made visible, I shall see that it was for my good and His glory.  

In every rainstorm there is a rainbow which will be brought to light as soon as the light can touch it, so in every pain and sorrow of life God has planted a rainbow which will be seen in due time when He can reveal to us the light of His love falling through it.