Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: January 25th

SHELTERING BENEATH GOD’S WING

How excellent is Thy loving-kindness O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. - Psalms 36:7

God’s loving-kindness, or mercy, as I explained the word might be rendered, is precious, for that is the true meaning of the word translated " excellent." We are rich when we have that for ours; we are poor without it. The true wealth is to possess God’s love, and to know in thought and realise in feeling and reciprocate in affection His grace and goodness, the beauty and perfectness of His wondrous character. That man is wealthy who has God on his side; that man is a pauper who has not God for his.

The word rendered, and accurately rendered, " put their trust," has a very beautiful literal meaning. It means to flee for refuge, as the man-slayer might flee into the strong city, or as Lot did out of Sodom to the little city on the hill, as David did into the cave from his enemies. So says the Word. With such haste, with such intensity, staying for nothing, and with the effort of your whole will and nature, flee to God. That is trust. Go to Him for refuge from all evil, from all harm, from your own souls, from all sin, from hell and death and the devil. Put your trust under "the shadow of His wing."

That is a beautiful image, drawn, probably, from the grand words of Deuteronomy, where the tenderness of God is likened to the " eagle stirring up her nest, fluttering over her young," with tenderness in her fierce eye and protecting strength in the sweep of her mighty pinion. So God spreads the covert of His wing, strong and tender, beneath which we may all gather ourselves and nestle. And how can we do that? By the simple process of fleeing unto Him, as made known to us in Christ our Saviour; to hide ourselves there. For let us not forget how even the tenderness of this metaphor was increased by its shape on the tender lips of the Lord: "How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." The Old Testament took the emblem of the eagle, sovereign and strong and fierce. The New Testament took the emblem of the domestic fowl, peaceable and gentle and affectionate. Let us flee to that Christ, by humble faith, with the plea on our lips-

" Cover my defenseless head

With the shadow of Thy wings";

and then all the Godhead, in its mercy, its faithfulness, its righteousness, and its judgments, will be on our side, and we shall know how precious is the loving-kindness of the Lord, and find in Him the home and hiding-place of our hearts for ever.