Expositions of Holy Scripture: PsalmsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
We seek Him by desire. Do you want Him? A great many of us do not. We
seek Him by communion, by turning our thoughts to Him, amidst all the
rush of daily life, and such a turning of thought to Him, which is quite
possible, will prevent our most earnest working upon things material
from descending to the likeness of the lions' fighting for it. We seek
Him by desire, by communion, by obedience. And they who thus seek Him
find Him in the act of seeking Him, just as certainly as if I open my
eye I see the sun, or as if I dilate my lungs the atmosphere rushes into
them. For He is always seeking us. That is a beautiful word of our
Lord's to which we do not always attach all its value, 'The Father
_seeketh_ such to worship Him.' Why put the emphasis upon the 'such,' as
if it was a definition of the only kind of acceptable worship? It is
that. But we might put more emphasis upon the 'seeketh' without spoiling
the logic of the sentence; and thereby we should come nearer the truth
of what God's heart to us is, so that if we do seek Him, we shall surely
find. In this region, and in this region only, there is no search that
is vain, there is no effort that is foiled, there is no desire
unaccomplished, there is no failure possible. We each of us have,
accurately and precisely, as much of God as we desire to have. If there
is only a very little of the Water of Life in our vessels, it is because
we did not care to possess any more. 'Seek, and ye shall find.'
We shall be sure to find everything in God. Look at the grand
confidence, and the utterance of a life's experience in these great
words: 'Shall not want any good.' For God is everything to us, and
everything else is nothing; and it is the presence of God in anything
that makes it truly able to satisfy our desires. Human love, sweet and
precious, dearest and best of all earthly possessions as it is, fails to
fill a heart unless the love grasps God as well as the beloved dying
creature. And so with regard to all other things. They are good when God
is in them, and when they are ours in God. They are nought when wrenched
away from Him. We are sure to find everything in Him, for this is the
very property of that infinite divine nature that is waiting to impart
itself to us, that, like water poured into a vessel, it will take the
shape of the vessel into which it is poured. Whatever is my need, the
one God will supply it all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account