the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
’’ They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." ― Isaiah 40:31.
It is regarded as one of the saddest facts in our condition, that the objects which interest and attract us, have no power to perpetuate their own attractiveness; and the mind obtaining what it passionately sought, and by degrees getting accustomed to its particular features of beauty, loses day by day something of its own delight in them. Fascination can get no victory that is not stolen from it again by time. And this is said to be an inevitable, Nemesis-like fact in our finite condition. Transport must give way to an inferior sentiment. Well for us, it is said, if, by a judicious and well-timed moderation of our desires, we sink into contentment and are satisfied with that condition of the soul, while the extravagancy of our former admiration sails away, like a painted bubble, to the skies.
We do not believe that this is a divinely-appointed element in our condition. An enemy hath done this. He wishes us to be as gods, and to lead a life of independence, and this is the paradise into which he brought us out of Eden. While we are swayed by him, while sin mingles so largely with the fabric of our earthly condition, while we are without God in the world, and seek the things of the world without reference to their connection with God, it is undoubtedly so. Beauty vanishes, and excellence by familiarity loses its power to captivate. We are taken up by hope into some cloud heaven, and have the choice perhaps of descending abruptly and disastrously, or of gliding down to earth by an imperceptible declivity.
Is there no remedy? Must the imaginative, aesthetic, aspiring portion of our nature hasten to shrivel up, and leave us to sober hopes, disciplined desires, and dwarfed expectations? Not so. What we need is an object whose excellence is ever fed, ever augmented by supplies from an infinite source; whose perfections seen are only introductory to other perfections to be seen; in the contemplation of whom our admiration can never overtake the limit of the admirable, for there is no limit. We need a divine object; and having this, we need not fear to cry, " excelsior!" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, is the first and great commandment. Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall grant thee the desires of thy heart. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.
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