SATISFIED.
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
The fear of the Lord tendeth to
life; and he that hath it shall abide satisfied.. – Prov. xix: 23.
All over the world are
unsatisfied hearts, seeking for something- they scarcely know what- to meet the
demands of the inward hunger which ever impels them onward to fresh exertions
to satisfy it. How truthfully the Wise Preacher describes this unsatisfactory
search, when He says, “All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the
eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” (Eccl. i:
8.) “Neither is his eye satisfied with riches.” (Eccl. iv: 8.)
Are not these words
daily verified in the lives of those who are vainly seeking a “satisfying
portion” in the outside pleasure of this deceitful world? they find bitter
mingled with every sweet, and are forced at last to acknowledge that they have
discovered nothing to satisfy the longing of their souls.
St. Augustine, who for
so long a time before his conversation, followed the dictates of his own
passionate will, admitted at last that there was no true rest except in God.
His words were these, “Thou hast made us Thyself, and the soul never resteth
till it findeth rest in Thee.”
But I am not thinking so
much just now about the unsatisfied pleasure-seekers of the world, as I am
about unsatisfied Christians. This
very term seems contradictory, for if we are Christians we ought to have such a
deep knowledge of the One Whom we profess to love and serve that we should
indeed be “satisfied as with marrow and fatness.” And yet it is a grievous
truth that there are many, very many, “who profess and call themselves
Christians” who are pining secretly with spiritual hunger and heart-sickness
and who do not gather their fill of the “hidden manna” which lies about their
very pathway.
It is such a wonderful
thing to “abide satisfied,” and yet this abiding satisfaction in Christ is our
blessed privilege. How precious are the words, “He satisfyeth the longing soul,
and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”-(St. Luke i: 53.) Let all of us who
are panting for the fullness of life, grasp this truth for ourselves, and
meekly say, “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” For it is the meek who
“shall eat and be satisfied” (Psa. xxii: 26), and we must be ready to yield up
all of our own words and ways and humbly submit to those of our Heavenly Master
before we shall be empty enough to be filled with Himself.
One dear sister of my
acquaintance who is hungering for a higher Christian life, and who has experienced
repeated failures in her efforts to rise above the mists which envelop her,
wrote me recently, “I am living now in either the rest of faith or the rest of
despair; I know not which.” Strangely enough these very words of wistful
complain suggest the condition of heart to which we must be brought, before our
longing souls can be filled with “the fullness of God.”
We must indeed know the
“rest of despair” as far as self-effort
is concerned, before we can know the “rest of faith” which depends on God’s work
to accomplish in our souls that which all of our own striving has failed to do.
We may, and must,
despair of ourselves, in our feebleness and folly, but let us beware lest at
the same time we forget our Saviour’s might and wisdom.
When we read Paul’s words,
“O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
we realize the despair of all self-effort, but when he immediately adds, “I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” he acknowledges our Saviour’s power
to accomplish what he, himself, could never do.
As long as there are any
strivings on our part to work out the deliverance which only Christ could
purchase for us, we must be shown by constant failure how futile are our
attempts. But when we are willing to cease from our own works and “become like
little children,” we shall know what it is to rest in Jesus’ arms without a
struggle, trusting Him to defeat our enemies, and knowing what it means to be “more
than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
***
Oh, that you could but know just what your Lord meant when HE said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow; for they toil not, neither do they spin.” Surely these words give us a picture of a life and of a growth far different from the ordinary life and growth of Christians-a life of rest, and a growth without effort, and yet a life and a growth crowned with glorious results. And to every soul that will thus become a lily in the garden of the Lord, and will grow us as the lilies grow, the same glorious array will be surely given as is given them, and they will know the fulfillment of that wonderful mystical passage concerning their Beloved, that “He feedeth among the lilies.”
-H.W.S.
