The Soul's Thirst and Satisfaction
Psalm lxiii. 1, 5, 8
“My soul thirsteth for Thee....
“My soul shall be satisfied....
‘•’ My soul followeth hard after Thee.” — Psalm lxiii. 1, 5, 8.
F we let this psalm speak for itself it tells us a good deal about the singer’s circumstances. He was in a dry and waterless land, excluded from his wonted worship in the sanctuary, surrounded by enemies who sought his life, apparently a king whose throne was in danger, conscious of many times of deliverance and help in past trials, and anticipating an impending fight in which his foes should be delivered to the power of the sword, and their corpses be torn by beasts of prey. All these things are in the psalm. They all seem to me to converge on David, and to make it far more probable that he is the author than that anyone else is.
Whoever wrote it has given immortal expression to the experiences of a soul in communion with God. The three clauses which I have ventured to isolate from their connection are the j)ivots on which the psalm turns, and they give, very strikingly and beautifully, the stages of seeking and finding God.
We have, first, the soul thirstincr, or loncfine for God; then the longing soul satisfied m God; and, last, the satisfied soul pressing still closer to God. Happy are they who can take these words as the transcripts of their own experiences. If we begin with the first, we shall attain to the second and the third. Let me ask you, then, to look at them in succession.
I. — First, we have the soul thirsting for God. Now, the Psalmist is a poet, and has a poet’s sensitiveness to the external aspects of nature, and the imagination that delights in seeing in these the reflections of his own moods. So, very beautifully, he looks upon the dreary scene around, and sees in it symbols of the yet drearier experience within. He beholds the grey monotony of the waterless wilderness, where the earth is cracked with clefts that look like mouths gaping for the rain that does not come, and he recognizes the likeness of his own yearning spirit. llsi feels the pangs of bodily weariness and thirst, and these seem to him to be but feeble S3mibols of the deeper-seated pains of desire which touch his soul. Of course, the occasion of his longing was his seclusion from the outward worship of the sanctuary. The stage of revelation and of religion at which he stood made the connection between form and spirit more intimate than it ought to be with us, who know that neither in Gerizim nor in Jerusalem is God’s throne. But whilst thus the occasion of his lonofinGf belonofed to the era in which he lived, the substance of it is permanent. All men thirst after God. The unrest, the deep yearnings, the longings and desires of our 100 TEE SOUL’S THIRST AND SATISFACTION.
natures — what are they all except cries for the living God, tendrils which are put forth, seeking after the great prop which alone is lit to lift us from the mud of this louver world? But the misery is that we do not know what Ave want, that we misinterpret the meaning of our desires, that we go to the wrong sources for our need; that when our souls are crying out for God, we fling them worldly good and say, “There, satisfy yourselves on that!” A man that has a wild thing in a cage, and does not know what its food is, when he hears it yelping, will cast to it what he thinks may suit it, on which it eagerly springs, and then turns from it in disgust. So, men seek to feed their souls on the things of earth, and, all the while, what they are crying for is, not earth, but God. Hence, desire is misery; and longing, instead of being the prophecy of blessedness, is pain. We resort to muddy pools and broken cisterns, and try there to slake our thirst, in vain. Oh, brethren, if we would give heed to the deepest voices within, Ave should make fewer mistakes in the ordering of our lives, and in the selection of our aims; and should, therefore, save ourselves from many an ache, and from the fever of many a thirst, that Ave never, never shall satisfy, apart from God. ShipAvrecked sailors drink salt-Avater in their wild thirst, and it makes them mad, Travellers in the desert are drawn by the mirage to seemingly shimmering lakes, fringed with palm trees; and it is nothing but sand. “My soul thirsteth for Thee.” Let us interpret the desire aright.
Let us see to it, too, that since Ave believe, or say aao believe, that God is our chiefest good, the intensity of the longing bear some proportion to the worth of the thing desired. Can there be anything more preposterous, anything in the strictest sense of the word more utterly irrational, than tepid wishes for the greatest good? Can it be anything but lunacy for men to let the whole swift, strong current of their atiections run towards worldly things, and only a little dribble be led off to flow towards that which is their true good? What would you think of a man that had some feeble wish after health or life, or for the beloved of his heart to be his own? And what shall we say of men whose very profession declares that their estimate of God is that He is the best and only home and strength of their hearts, and who yet, if they were honest with themselves, would acknowledge that they do not wish for Him one-tenth part as much as they do for prosperity in business, the gratification of their ambitions, the satisfaction of their affections, the success of their purposes, or the attainment of their fleeting desires?
This Psalmist was making no exaggerated statement when he said, “My soul thirsteth,” and my flesh pines. Jjoes not his eagerness shame our lack of earnestness? Cold wishes for God are as flagrant an absurdity as cold sunshine. Religion is nothing if it not fervour.
11. — We have here the seekinof soul satisfied.
“My soul shall be satisfied, as with marrow and fatness.” Of course, the imagery of a feast naturally follows upon the previous metaphor of the soul’s thirst.
Now, it is to be observed here with what beautiful and yet singular swiftness the whole mood of the Psalmist changes. People may say that that is unnatural, but it is true to the deepest experiences; and it unveils for us one of the surest and most precious blessinofs of a true Christian life — viz., that fruition is ever attendant upon desire. The Psalmist may have long been musing before the fire burned, and he spake with his tongue. We know not how that may be, but this we know, that the lips which were parted to say, “My soul thirsteth,” had scarcely uttered it when again they opened to say, “My soul is satisfied.” It is no wonder. God’s gifts are never delayed, in the hiofhest of all reoions. In the lower there often are long delays — the lingerings of love for our good — but in the loftiest, fruition grows side by side with longing. The same moment witnesses the petition flashed to Heaven, as with the speed of lightning, and the answer coming back to the waiting heart; as in tropical lands when the rain comes, what was barren, baked earth in a day or two is rich meadow, all ablaze with flowers, and the dry torrent beds, where the stones lay white and glistening ghastly in the hot sunshine, are foaming with rushing streams and fringed with budding oleanders. Spring comes at a bound on the back of Winter in the Arctic regions. In the realm of communion with God, to desire is to have; and the soul that thirsts has no sooner opened the mouth wide than the desired blessing pours in and fills it. So, brethren, there need be no long interval between these two phases of experience in our cases, and if the former be genuine and deep, the latter will be swift and immediate.
Not only does this second text of ours give us that thought of the simultaneousness, in regard of the highest of all gifts, of wish and enjoyment, but it also tells us that the soul thus answered will be satisfied. If it be true, as we have been trying to say, that God is the real object of all human desire, then the contact of the seeking soul with that perfect aim of all its seeking will bring rest to every appetite, its desired food to every wish, strength for every weakness, fulness for all emptiness. Like two of the notched sticks that were formerly used as tallies, the seeking soul and the giving God fit into one another, and there is nothing that we need that Ave cannot get in Him. So the answer is the satisfying of the soul.
And, still further, as our psalm tells us, the satisfied souls breaks into music. For it goes on to say, after the words,” My soul shall be satisfied with marrow
and fatness,”” my mouth shall praise Him with
joyful lips.”
Of course, the Psalmist had still many occasions for sorrow and doubt and fear. Nothing had changed in his outward circumstances. The desert was still round him. Jerusalem was still far away, on the other side of the river. The foe was still pursuing, murderous in heart as before. The little camp was still shelterless in the open. But this had changed — God was felt to be as close as ever He had been in the sanctuary. And that consciousness altered everything, and turned all the Psalmist’s lamentations into jubilant anthems. It transposed his music from the minor key, and his lips broke into songs of gladness. There is, perhaps, a very beautiful allusion to his circumstances in the verse that follows our second text, where he speaks about meditating on God in the alight watches. The unprotected encampment had to keep vigilant guard lest the nightly silence should be broken by the shout of surprising foes. But even in such circumstances this man had a song in the night, and could meditate upon God.
Translate these particulars into general thoughts, and they are just this: — No sorrow, nor anxiety, nor care, nor need for vigilance against danger ought to check the praise that may come, and should come, from a heart in touch with God, and a soul satisfied in Him. It is a hard lesson for some of us to learn; but it is a lesson, the learning of which will be full of blessedness. There is a bird common in our northern districts which people call the storm-cock, because his note always rings out cheeriest in tempestuous weather. That is the kind of music that the Christian’s heart should make, responding, like an ^Eolian harp, to the tempest’s breath by song, and filling the night with praise. It is possible for us, even before sorrow and sighing have fled away, to be pilgrims on the road, “with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads.” The Psalmist felt that he was sitting at a feast, “satisfied as with marrow and fatness,” and he felt that the festival was incomplete without melody.
III. — And so, lastly, notice how the satisfied soul presses closer to God.
“My soul followeth hard after Thee,” says the last of our texts. The language in the original is extremely condensed and significant. Literally translated, though, of course, much too clumsily for an
THE SOUL’S TEIIiST AND SATISFACTION. 105
English version, the words run: “My soul cleaveth after Thee,” expressing, in one pregnant phrase, two attitudes usually felt to be incompatible, that of calm repose and that of eager pursuit. But these two, unlike each other as they are, may be, and should be, harmoniously blended in the experience of a Christian life. On the one hand, there is the clinging of satisfaction, and, on the other hand, the ever-satisfied stimulus to a closer approach.
The soul that is satisfied will, and ought to, adhere with tenacity to the source that satisfies it. The word that is used here is the same which is employed in statino’ the o’reat law of the sacredest of human affections: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” It is the same word that is employed to describe how Ruth clung to Naomi, and for her sake abandoned country and friends. With such absorbed, all-sacrificing devotion and clinging tenacity ought our souls to grapple and hold fast to God, as the ivy to the tree, as the limpet to its rock — clinging to Him with will, affections, thought, and by the direction of the practical life, and the recognition of Him as present in all our distracting work and circumstances.
From Him, and from Him only, comes the true satisfaction for our souls, and if thus our hearts are fed on God, will not the very blessedness of that fruition be such as to ensure our cleaving to Him? There will be no temptation for a man to wander away from that source of all good. I have found all that I need. Why should I search any further? The dove folds its pinions when it reaches the ark, and needs no more to wing its weary way over sullen waters, vainly searching for a resting-place. Nomad tribes, when they find themselves in some rich valley, unload their camels, and pitch their tents, and say, “Here will we dwell, for the land is good.” And so we, if we have made ex^Dcrience, as we may, of God and His sweet sufficiency, and sufficient sweetness, should be delivered from temptation to go further and fare worse. And then this clinoino- resultinof from satisfaction, is accompanied with earnest seeking after still more of the infinite Good. In other regions, and when directed to other objects, satisfaction is apt to pass into satiety, because the creature that satisfies us is limited. But when we turn ourselves to God, and seek for all that we need there, there can be no satiety in us, because there can be no exhaustion of that which is in Him. The cup that He gives us to drink when our souls thirst has nothing cloying in its sweetness, but rather a taste that stimulates to deeper draughts of the same. So, the two opposing blessednesses, the blessedness of search that is sure of finding, and the blessedness of finding which is calm repose, are united in the Christian experience. And we may, at every moment, have all that we want given to us, and by the very gift our capacity, and therefore our longings, be increased. Thus, in wondrous alternation, satisfaction and thirst beget each other, and each possesses some of the other’s sweetness.
And when we thus press on to know and to possess more of God, as the Psalmist tell us in the context, “Thy right hand upholdeth me.” They who thus long, and possess, and long again, receive the support of that Divine hand in their lonpfinG^s and in all their lives.
So, dear friends, let us learn the meaning of our unrest. Let us listen to Him who says, “If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink.” Then “we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more” with pain, though always with hapjoy desire. Then, “satisfied with goodness, and full of the favour of the Lord,” we shall not seek elsewhere for our delights. Then, clasping and clasped by that strong and gentle hand, we shall stand steadfast against all storms, and lie in His palm, protected and safe against all dangers. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them; and they follow AEe, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; and no man shall pluck them out of Mv hand.”