A Time for Sickness

When languor and disease invade

This trembling house of clay,

‘Tis sweet to look beyond our cage,

And long to fly away.

 

Sweet to look inward and attend

The whispers of His love;

Sweet to look upward to the place

Where Jesus pleads above.

 

Sweet to look back, and see my name

In life’s fair book set down;

Sweet to look forward, and behold

Eternal joys my own.

 

Sweet to reflect how grace divine

My sins on Jesus laid;

Sweet to remember that His blood

My debt of suffering paid.

 

Sweet in His righteousness to stand,

Which saves from second death;

Sweet to experience day by day

His Spirit’s guiding breath.

 

Sweet in His faithfulness to rest,

Whose love can never end;

Sweet on His covenant of grace

For all things to depend.

 

Sweet in the confidence of faith

To trust His firm decrees;

Sweet to lie passive in His hands,

And know no will but His.

 

If such the sweetness of the stream

What must the fountain be,

Where saints and angels draw their bliss

Immediately from Thee?

 

–A. Toplady