The Omnipresent God
11 Thou hast beset me behi?id and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.” — Ps. cxxxix. 5.
In three directions hast Thou beset me, 0 God. Thou art behind me, Thou art before me, Thou art in contact with me. Thou art behind me in my past, Thou art before me in my future, Thou art in contact with me in the pressure of my present hour. In all these relations I need Thee every day. I am bound to three worlds, and any one of them would crush me were I not beset by Thee. I am bound to the past, and its chain oppresses me; I am bound to the future, and its shadows appal me; I am bound to the present, and its conflict perturbs me. I want rest for my threefold self — rest in Thee. Beset my dark past with Thy presence; take up its clouds and turn them into sunshine. Beset my shadowy future with Thy glory; reveal the rainbow of Thy promise to the eye of faith.
Beset my arduous present with the sense of Thy nearness; let me feel laid on me the pressure of Thy hand. I care not though the pressure be heavy if only it be Thine; the yoke that comes from Thee is ever easy, the burden that Thou sendest is ever light. I know that wheresoever Thy presence is felt there is experienced a sense of weight, the laying on of an invisible hand, but I know, too, that the weight is of gold. I would not be without it if I could; it is that which men call responsibility, and it tells me that I am a man. I may never again have the carelessness of the child, for it is a solemn thing to know that I am with Thee. But there is something better than the carelessness of the child; it is the carefulness of a spirit weighted with a sense of God. Therefore, 0 Lord, impress me with the magnitude, with the solemnity, with the awfulness of being a man. Teach me that I am not my own, that I live not to myself, that I die not to myself. Lay on me the weight of my moral obligation. Lay on me the weight of feeling and knowing that I am a responsible human soul. Let me hear the voice of conscience, “You ought, therefore you can.” Let me hear the voice of my brother crying unto me from the ground of earthly abasement for succour, for solace, for sustenance. Give me the burden that Thou hast made golden — the burden of a life that is straitened till its baptism be accomplished, oppressed until its work be done. Fill me with a sense of universal care, that I may be rendered individually strong; Thy power shall be great in me when Thou hast laid on me Thine hand.