Comfort in Prostration
Thou compassest my lying down.” — Ps. cxxxix. 3.
Our moments of “lying down” are not generally deemed Divine moments. We can understand the previous words, “Thou compassest my path,’* — my walk of life. That is a sphere of action — where it is possible for us to do great things. But that our times of quiescence should be times of Divine interest, that our seasons of inaction should be seasons of the presence of God — this is strange indeed! Yes, and it is as comforting as it is strange. You and I are often called to experience these moments of” lying down.” There are times when, in the language of another psalm, our strength is “weakened in the way.” There are seasons when we have to leave the path and go home — go into retirement, into solitude, into seeming uselessness. And the hardest part of these moments is just the sense of having missed our destiny. We have been shunted from the path, we have been made to lie down; and it seems to us as if God had no further place
67 E 2 for us beneath the circle of the sun. What a comfort at such moments are these words of the ancient psalmist, ‘’ Thou compassest my lying down”! They tell us that the quiescent hour may be a Divine hour, that the seemingly useless moment may be full of God. They tell us that the greatest day of our life may be the day after we have quitted the path — the day of our prostration, our pain, our weariness. They tell us that the places where we are forced to lie down may be God’s green pastures, that the coming to quiet waters may be God’s own leading. The hour which our soul is rejecting may be the hour when the kingdom has come.
O Christ of Calvary, in my days of valley and shadow help me to feel that ‘*Thou art with me’M It is not enough for me to feel that, one day, there will be mountain and sunshine. No; that is only to say Thou wilt be with me in the future. I want Thee now. What I need is not help to leave the valley nor help to clear the shadow. I want to feel that Thou art in the valley, that Thou art in the shadow. I want my “lying down” itself lo be glorified. It is something to know that Thou wilt raise me up at the last day — on the day when my discipline is completed; but it is not enough for me. Is the time of my rest to be Godless — without Comfort in Prostration
Thy presence! Is my valley to be a waste place, a useless place, a place where Thou art not! Is my shadow to be an eclipse of Thee a blotting out of Thee! It is not enough to know that to-morrow the cup will pass; I must be able to feel, with Thee, that to-day it is “the cup my Father has given me.” Reveal to me the glory of Gethsemane 1 Reveal to me the majesty of my desert hour! Reveal to me the ladder of angels that rose from my couch of clay! Reveal to me the Bethlehem songs that came from my midnight silence! Reveal to me the multitudes in my wilderness — the crowds that waited on me when I thought myself alone! My life will be robbed of half its weariness when I see Thee compassing my “lying down.”