Reader! is this your experience? Is this the result of your temporal afflictions, the end of your spiritual conflicts,—to lead you to the same Shepherd of Israel, and to exult in Him as "the health of your countenance, and your God?" Elimelech, of old, was compelled by famine to leave Bethlehem, but his name signified, "My God is King!" When we are pressed with straits, and troubles, and perplexities, let us make that name our strong tower! "My God is King" is a glorious motto. Is it the heavings and convulsions of the world's nations—"kings of the earth setting themselves, and rulers taking counsel together," from motives of personal ambition, or political jealousy, or lust of conquest? Write upon all their schemes, Elimelech—"My God is King!" Is it the apparently mysterious discipline through which some may be passing—bereavements threatening your dwelling, or the hand of death already on your loved ones? Write on the darkened threshold, Elimelech—"My God is King!" Is it the prospect of your own death that is filling you with apprehension? Remember in whose hands, under whose sovereign control, that messenger is. Go to the vacant Sepulchre at Golgotha, and read that writing and superscription which the "Abolisher of death" has left for the comfort of all His people:—"I have the keys of the grave and of death." Christian! even here, in these gloomy regions, "thy God is King!"
How blessed thus to be able, both in temporal and spiritual things, to lie in the arms of His mercy, saying, "Undertake Thou for us!"—to feel that every thread in the web of life is woven by the Great Artificer,—that not one movement in these swiftly-darting shuttles is chance; but all is by His direction, and all is to result in good! In having Himself as our portion, we are independent of every other;—we have the pledge of all other blessings. "Let the moveables go, the inheritance is ours!" Let the streams fail, we have the inexhaustible fountain! "Drop millions of gold," says good Bishop Hopkins, "boundless revenues, ample territories, crowns and sceptres, and a poor contemptible worm lays his One God against them all."[107] "Our all," says Lady Powerscourt, "is but two mites (soul and body). His all—Heaven, Earth, Eternity, Himself." We have said in a previous chapter that the loftiest archangel can tell of no mightier prerogative than looking up to the Great Being before whom he casts his crown, and saying, "My God!" We can utter them in a sense higher than he. He is OUR God in Christ. The words to us are written (which to the unredeemed angels they are not) in the blood of atonement! Imagine, for a moment, a conversation between a bright angel in heaven and a ransomed sinner from earth. The angel can point to a past eternity; he can tell of a glorious pedigree; he can point up to his Almighty Maker, and say, "He has been my God for ages and ages past. I have been kept, supported, gladdened by His amazing mercy, long before the birth of time or your world!" "True," we may imagine the redeemed and glorified sinner to reply,—"but I can tell of something more wondrous still. He is my God in covenant! Thou art His by creation, but I am His also by adoption, filiation, sonship. Though grace has kept thee through these countless ages, during which thou hast cast thy crown at His feet, what is the grace manifested to thee, in comparison with the grace manifested to me? Grace made thee holy, and kept thee holy; but grace found me on the brink of despair, plucked me as a brand from the burning, brought me from the depths of woe and degradation, to a throne and a crown! Thy God hath loved thee. My God hath 'loved me' and given Himself for me!"
And now we close our meditations on this beautiful and instructive Psalm:—a Psalm which, even since we have begun to write on it, we have seen clung to as a treasured solace in hours of sickness;—its sublime utterances soothing the departing soul, just as it was pluming its wings for flight to the spirit-world! Reader! in any future dark and troubled passages in your life, you may well with comfort turn to this diary of an old and tried saint, remembering that it records the experiences of "the man after God's own heart." Tracing his footsteps and tear-drops along "the sands of time," you shall cease to "think it strange concerning the fiery trials that may be trying you, as though some strange thing happened." You will find that "the same afflictions are accomplished in you," which have been "accomplished" in the case of God's most favoured servants in every age of the Church. Do not expect now the unclouded day. That is not for earth, but for heaven. God indeed, had He seen meet, might have ordained that your pathway was to be without cloud or darkness, trial or tear;—no poisoned darts, no taunts, no contumely, no cross, no "deep calling to deep,"—nothing but calm seas unfretted by a ripple, sunny slopes and verdant valleys, and bright Mizar-hills of love and faithfulness! But to keep you humble,—to teach you your dependence on Himself,—to make your present existence a state of discipline and probation, He has ordered it otherwise. Your journey as travellers is through mist and cloud-land;—your voyage as seamen through alternate calm and storm.[108] And much of that discipline, too, is mysterious. You cannot discern its "why" and "wherefore." To employ a former symbol, you are now like the vessel building in the dock-yard. The unskilled and uninitiated can hear nothing but clanging hammers;—they can see nothing but unshapely timbers and glare of torches. It is a scene of din and noise, dust and confusion. But all will at last be acknowledged as needed portions in the spiritual workmanship;—when the soul, released from its earthly fastenings, is launched on the summer seas of eternity—
"Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismay'd.
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head:
Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears the way;