The Threshold Grace: Meditations in the PsalmsAinsworth, Percy C. (Percy Clough)
Religion
The Threshold Grace: Meditations in the Psalms
Ainsworth, Percy C. (Percy Clough)
Bible. Psalms -- Meditations
_Pour out your heart before Him._ How this singer understood the office and
privilege of the 'all times' trust! He knew that there is a fullness of
heart that is ill to bear. True, in more than one simple way the full heart
can find some slight relief. There is work. The full heart can go out and
do something. There is a brother's trouble in which a man may partly forget
his own. There is sympathy. Surely few are so lonely that they cannot find
any one ready to offer the gift of the listening ear, any one willing to
share with them all of pain and burden that can be shared. Ah! but what of
that which cannot be shared? What of the sorrow that has no language, and
the shame and confusion that we would not, and even dare not, trail across
a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured
out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could
not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and
unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it
with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our
precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last high uses in the hour
of sorrow or shame, the heart has still a burden for which this world finds
no relief. But there is another fellowship. There is God our Father. There
is the ear of Heaven. We may be girt with silence among our fellows, but in
looking up the heart finds freedom. In His Presence the voice of confession
can break through the gag of shame, and the pent-up tide of trouble can let
itself break upon the heart of Eternal Love.
_God is a refuge for us._ That is the great discovery of faith. That is the
merciful word that comes to be written so plainly in the life that has
formed the habit of faith. God our refuge. It may be that to some the word
'refuge' suggests the occasional rather than the constant need of life. But
the refuge some day and the faith every day are linked together. A thing is
no use to you if you cannot find it when you want it. And you cannot find
it easily if it be not at hand. The peasant built his cottage under the
shadow of his lord's castle walls. In the hour of peril it was but a step
to the strong fortress. 'Trust in Him at all times.' Build your house under
the walls of the Eternal Help. Live in the Presence. Find the attitude of
faith, and the act of faith will be simple. Trust in Him through every
hour, and when a tragic hour comes one step shall take you into the
innermost safety.
III.
THE ONE THING DESIRABLE
One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will
I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the
beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.
Ps. xxvii. 4.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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