The Confidence Born of Divine Communion

I shall not be greatly moved.” — Psatm lxii. 2. ‘** T shall not be moved.’”’ — Psa.m lxii. 6.

I HAVE brought these two sentences together from different parts of the same Psalm because they seem to suggest a vital progress in the spiritual life of the Psalmist. The Psalmist is contemplating hostile circumstances. He is anticipating tempests of antagonism. He hears the whirlwind raging over the waste. And, as he sees himself caught in the blast, he seems a little shaken by the force of the assault. But he is not overwhelmed, and on the whole he retains his place. ‘‘ I shall not be greatly moved!” A little later he looks again at the coming tempest, and he sees himself the centre of the violence, but he sees himself immovable. ‘*T shall not be moved!” The significance of the word “greatly’ has vanished, and his mood is transformed. In the first condition there is a trembling; in the second condition there is the firmness of a blessed assurance. In the first there is a shiver of fear — ‘ I shall not be greatly moved”’; in the second there is the unshaken confidence of a splendid faith — ‘‘I shall not be moved.” In the former experience he is dislodged a little from his standing; in the latter experience he is steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. In the first expression of his mood there is something young, uncertain, and immature; in the second expression there is the voice of a more vital trust, and the suggestion of spiritual maturity. He passes from the painful wobbling of ‘‘I shall not be greatly moved”? to the masculine serenity of “I shall not be moved.”

Now, what has happened between the first experience and the second? This has happened: he has been in deeper communion with God. Thatisthesecret. His trembling spirit was soothed in the Divine communion. The timid flutterings of his heart were quieted on the bosom of his God. That is the secret. It is as when some frightened child is caught up in its mother’s arms, and feels the cuddling strength of her embrace. the calmness which comes from sharing the stronger life of another. Who has not had this experience even on the

9 lower plane of human fellowships? It may be we are riven with uncertainties and beset with fears; but we pass into the presence and communion of some strong, serene man, and we drink his peace. One strong, quiet man, endowed with large understanding and splendid self-possession, can chase away the fears of a whole nation. He.ispeace.to-.all.his environment.

How much more profoundly true is all this when we raise the relation to our fellowship with God!) Fears flourish in mean communions. And so it is with worries, which are the prolific children of fear, They all grow fat and strong when life is lived in small and confined circles, and is bereft of air and vision. Foul things breed in closed rooms. There is something very fusty, something strongly inclining to sickliness and fainting in a chamber which never receives cleansing, vitalising visits from the air of larger worlds. And so it is with the soul, (The spirit grows faint and timid when we have no communion with the~breath-of God. But when we face our perils, in communion with the Lord, our.timidities are’ transformed, our uncertainties vanish,»

3 - gh Sa by::, PS MWe, De & Atte and our slipping feet are steadied) by being shod with ‘the preparation of the gospel ‘of peace.”

‘Deeper communion with God is the great secret of spiritual maturity. Our preparation for meeting trying and exacting circumstances is often very ill-arranged. We do this, and that, and the other; we fuss around in twenty ways, and our life remains ‘* a haunt of fears.”” We meet our days with a divided life, and our heart is not fixed in healthy serenity. We-have not the sovereign command.which-belongs to peace. If only we would give to Divine communion the time and the care which we give to minor preparations we should put on strength and confidence like-a-robe. ‘“‘I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and He delivered me from all my fears.”

“Take from our lives the strain and stress!”’ Yes, but who can do that but God? He can do it, and by His grace it is done. In His strengthening, restoring fellowship we ean face all our hostile circumstances with ‘¢ ordered lives,’”’ lives which confess the beauty of God’s peace.

a SSS