If thou knewest the gift of God. — John 4:10
The Samaritan woman did not dream of the power to help and to bless there was in the lowly peasant that sat on the well–curb that day. If she had known, there was nothing she could not have received from His hands. A little later she learned who it was, and did receive much.
We are missing life’s best things continually because we are not aware of the glory that is ever close to us. Mrs. Browning tells us that every common bush is aflame with God, and that while those who see take off their shoes, the rest sit round and eat blackberries. “The days come to us,” says Emerson, “in endless file, but to each of us they offer gifts: bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.” But many of us see not these glorious gifts in the common days, and take only a few herbs and apples, missing the rare things we might have chosen. If we only knew how near Christ is to us continually, we would not go on unblessed as we do.