Renewing One's Youth

‘** Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.’” — PSALM Ciii. 5.

I AM impressed with the logic of these great words. It is the logic of life. ‘‘ Who satisfieth... so that thy youth is renewed.” A certain sort of satisfaction is to issue in rejuvenation. When the soul is deeply nourished, the stale and weary life is to turn backward to its youth. That is to say, we are to seek the secrets of exuberance in the fields of the Spirit. It is a word which opens out a world of thought. For one thing, it suggests that a vast multitude of people, who are ‘‘ growing old too soon,” are not suffering from over-work, as they like to tell us, but from spiritual starvation. They are losing their youth because they have lost or are losing their God. God hath set eternity within their hearts, and yet they are living as children of the passing day.

The unsatisfied life is one that lacks its appointed relationships. It is living as a barnyard fowl when it was purposed to be an eagle. It is imprisoned in the inch when it was planned to wander in the infinite. It houses itself in mean fellowships when it was ordained for imperial fellowships, and for the communion of the Holy Ghost. And thus it becomes disquieted because its princely powers are unexercised. It piles up things, but the accumulated things bring no relief. It multiplies its pleasures, but the many pleasures bring no joy. It plans and creates gardens of ease, but in the ease there is no peace. There is something wrong. ‘** Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?” And the entire explanation is found in the divine challenge, ‘“‘ Why spend ye money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” Life has been ordered on the deadly assumption that money can purchase the requisite nutriment, and that labour can secure the precious pearl of rest. God has been left out. And so the spirit of man grows old because it lacks the primary satisfaction.

But when God satisfies us with His good things the heart grows young again. “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”” And this happens because young and youth-making things appear in the life. For instance, these three things appear, and they are all as young as the dawn : — Faith, hope, and love. How can any heart grow cold when these three dwell within it? And then, again, praise comes in. And what specific for the retention of youth can beat the spirit of praise? The Prophet was surely right when he said that the garment of praise supplants the spirit of heaviness. They cannot live together. A great worship always renews the springs of thought and will. And so it is in God that we find the fountain of renewal. We ought to grow younger in spirit as our years increase. I suppose that is one of the secrets of the tireless life of eternity.