Christian Aspiration

i% I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.” — Ps. xvii. 15.

And shall nothing less than this content thee, 0 Psalmist? To awake in the likeness of God, — it is a bold aspiration for a frail and sinful mortal. I should rather have expected thee to have crouched down in absolute humiliation before the blaze of the Infinite Glory. I should have expected thee to have asked only the crumbs that should fall from the Masters table, to have been content with the smallest token of the Master’s recognition. Why didst thou not ask merely to be made one of the hired servants in the house of thy God, to be assigned the position of a pardoned and reinstated slave? Instead of that, thy demand is insatiable, inexhaustible. There is no limit to its soaring, there is no bound to its desire. It will not be content with the remission of a penalty, it will not be appeased with the promise of pardon, it will not even be perfectly gratified with the message of reconciliation, it must have union with God Himself. It aspires to be one with the life and will of the Highest; it gazes into the Infinite Brightness and cries, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.”

My soul, the Psalmist is in this a type of thee at thy best. Whenever thou art near to God thy demands are insatiable. It is when thou art far from God that thine expectations are small; the narrow heart has a short outlook. It is when thy heart is enlarged that thy wants are enlarged; thy wants are the measure of thee, thy want of God is most of all the measure of thee. When God has come near to thee thou wilt accept no compromise.

Thou wilt not be satisfied with His outward gifts, thou wilt not be contented with His promise of pardon; thou shalt have Himself alone. It will not appease thee to be told that there is no more fear; thou shalt insist to enter into the joy of thy Lord. Thou shalt ask to see as He sees, to will as He wills, to know as He knows. Thou shalt claim the privilege of a kindred spirit, whereby thou mayest commune with Him as a man talketh with his friend; and when the world wonders that thou art not at rest in the possession of its own gifts, thou shalt point thy finger upward and say, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with His likeness.”