Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: April 13th

" Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." ― Hosea 6:2.

Is it at all unreasonable to suppose that the contemplation of God will yield us greater more precious results than the consideration of anything or of everything in this world that he has made? You are wrapt up in the study of mineralogy, or botany, or conchology; and have no time to spare for the cultivation of your acquaintance with God. The sight of a little shell has wonderful power to awaken all your faculties: and you have no rest till you have ascertained its characteristics, traced and counted the lines upon it, and determined its specific relations; but an invitation to come and contemplate God leaves you listless and apathetic. You delight in archaeological researches, and with your whole soul embark in the study of certain antiquities, with a view to determine at what period, and by whom they were produced; yet are you never for a moment tormented by the desire to increase your knowledge of God. You, my friend, have a great dread of being found imperfectly acquainted with a certain literature, and think nothing of devoting whole nights to the acquisition of it; but your conscience is visited by no painful sense of your defective knowledge of him from whom is every good gift.

Once we too were thus. If a man had anything curious to tell us concerning the most distant star that twinkles in the firmament, we waited for his words with eagerness; but no solicitude to improve our acquaintance with the Divine Disposer of all, ever agitated our soul.

But now we grasp at this assurance: "Then shall we know;" and at the similar asseveration of Paul: " Then shall I know, even as also I am known." And the joy with which we hail this prospect is a clear evidence that we have passed out of the region of our former ignorance, and that we know God. In difference and ignorance are here indissolubly linked, as also are knowledge and thirst for knowledge.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. The Lord has brought us into the pathway of the knowledge of him, and bids us pursue that path through all its strange meanderings until it opens out upon the plain where God’s throne is. Our life is a following on to know the Lord. We marvel at some of the experiences through which we are called to pass: but afterwards we see that they afforded us some new knowledge of our Lord. Our path suddenly disappeared in some hideous cavern where we seemed to hear the roaring of wild beasts; and we could not at all connive what benefit would result from our entering; but we entered; and when by a favoring passage we emerged from that obscurity and danger, we felt that we had obtained some new and valuable insight into the divine character. Again, our path shot right down into the impenetrable darkness of some deep pit. It was some time before our eyes got accustomed to that darkness; then we discovered a little door, and soon found ourselves in a gallery of hidden treasures, several of which we gathered and still retain. Pursuing thus the knowledge of God we found ourselves like Joseph in Egypt, alone in the midst of a nation that knew not God; and found that there was something here to be learned concerning the divine perfections that could not elsewhere be learned. We have not then to wait for some future brighter opportunity; but by improvement of the present are to build for ourselves a bridge to that future.

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