Where Shall I Most Miss God?
“If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Exon. xxziii. 15.
HIS is to my mind one of the most remarkable prayers in the Bible. It is
not a prayer to get to the land of Canaan. It is rather a prayer against getting there except under particular conditions. The people in the desert had been guilty of idolatry. God was incensed with them. He threatened to withdraw His presence from them. He would cease to be their personal guide; He would send an angel in His room. He would not, indeed, break His promise of bringing them to the land of Canaan; He would ensure their entrance there. But He would not Himself lead them; He would put them in the hands of an emissary. Moses says, “If we are to lose Thy presence, let us stay where we are. I
would rather lose Thy presence in the desert than lose it in the land of Canaan. It is not enough for me that a safe passage has been secured for me to the land of Beulah. I should not wish to go into the land of Beulah if Thou wert not there. Bad as Thine absence from the desert would be, it would be nothing to Thine absence from Canaan. If such a tragic separation should come, let it be here — not yonder; if Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.”
And so it is with me, O Lord. I hear men say that they need Thy presence for the dust and the din and the battle; so, doubtless, they do. Yet I think, so far as love is concerned, I should feel Thine absence most under the calm and sunny sky. I think, if Thy presence went from me at all, I would rather it should quit me in the desert than quit me in the land of Canaan; I would say with Moses, “If Thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence.” The prayer of every soul must be, “Through storm and sunshine, Lord, abide with me; yet, methinks, if Thou wert away I should miss Thee in the sunshine more than in the storm. The storm would not naturally remind me of Thee; but the sunshine would. I have never associated Thy presence with the keen blast; but I have associated it with the summer air. Thou hast been to me the final bloom on every flower, the crowning tint on every sky. It is there that I should miss Thee. I should miss Thee most in the spot where I used most to see Thee. I never thought of the storm as Thy native garment; it always seemed one of Thy temporary robes. But the calm has to my heart been Thy normal vesture — chiefly beautiful because it has clothed Thee. I should no more like to meet the calm without Thee than I should like to see the old garment of my friend after his spirit had fied. If I must part from Thee, let it be now — not in Canaan! “If Thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence.”