the Third Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"Thou Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee." - Psalms 9:10.
The promise of the Lord never to forsake the soul that trusts in him, looks familiarly and kindly forth upon us, from many a page of Scripture, old and new. But we have here an historical statement to the effect that he has never forsaken them that seek him. This is a bold averment. History is a very large affair. Ten thousand volumes were but a small part of its library. It is startled by the challenge contained in our text; and takes down volume after volume, saying, " I will easily, with my voluminous records, levy an army of many thousand facts to confound this statement.’’ Unbelief nods assent, saying, " The statement needs modification: We have often been forsaken of the Lord."
The promise is not that we shall always have a sensible manifestation of the Lord. - That we shall always have a soul-gladdening consciousness of his presence. - That we shall always be able to understand his dealings with us. - That we shall be kept from disappointments, and from anguish of spirit.
The promise is not that we shall never be cast into a den of lions; - never into a fiery furnace, - never be a fugitive by the brooks Cherith, or under the juniper tree - never be brought before Nero. Look for the token that the Lord hath not forsaken you, in the right place. Look for it in the den of lions, and you will find it in the form of an angel. Look for it in the burning fiery furnace, and find it in the form of the Son of God. Look at Elijah under the juniper tree. He seems to have been surprised into a loss of faith, when he heard that the queen had sworn to take his life; to have imagined that the Lord had forsaken him; to have fled in dishonorable alarm; and to have cast himself, way-worn and anguish stricken, under the juniper tree, with a feeling that it was about as well to die, seeing that no degree of intimacy with the Lord would secure a man from being forsaken of him. But it was not the Lord that had forsaken him; it was he that had forsaken himself; and this he now discovered. Afterwards the still small voice came, saying, " The Lord is in me, but thou canst not hear me nor discern him, if thou hearken to the voice of an angry queen; it is the privilege of faith to hear me even amid the thunders of God’s most agitated providence."
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