The Promise of Heaven
“Thy Spirit is good: lead me into the land of uprightness” — Ps. clxiii. 10.
How beautiful is this thought of the Psalmist! There is a harmony, he says, between our powers and our destiny. Goodness must lead to the land of goodness. Is not this thought of the Psalmist thy purest natural hope of immortality? Thou art conscious within thee of great moral yearnings — yearnings which this world cannot fill. Thou feelest in thy heart aspirings which thy hand cannot reach, ideals which thy life cannot realise, resolves which thy will cannot execute. Are not these aspirings the voice of the Spirit within thee? Yea, verily, and yet they are little more than prophetic voices. How little hast thou achieved of those aspirings even in thy best moments, how little hast thou reached of those ideals even in thy highest flights! There is a law in thy members warring against the law of thy mind, and the weakness of thy flesh refuses to endorse the will of thy spirit. Is, then, the voice of God within thee a delusion? Nay, it is a prophecy. It reveals within thee more than thou canst embody without thee, but even so it predicts the advent of a higher power. Thy desire for goodness outruns thy capacity, yet it is the forerunner that tells that a larger capacity is coming. Is thy moral nature alone to be without its goal? Is everything to be provided for but thine aspirings after the beauty of holiness Earth has filled all other capacities with employment and with enjoyment. This alone is unsatisfied here. Surely it shall be satisfied elsewhere, surely it shall be abundantly satisfied with the goodness of God’s house and with the river of His pleasures. Everywhere but in thy heart there are heard already the full echoes of His praise, but within thy heart praise yet waiteth for Him. Thou art as yet only a promise to thy Maker, only a promise to thyself — a primrose in the cold, a dawn amid the shadows of the East. Yet the promise is made by something higher than thee — even the Spirit of
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truth that is within thee. Thy spring demands a summer, thy dawn is the pledge of a day. The Spirit of God is good, therefore He shall lead thee into the land of uprightness.