Daily Devotional 9.28.11

Tale of the Years

“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.” (Psalms 90:9)

This Psalm is almost without parallel for sublimity, a worthy monument of the inspired genius of Moses, “the man of God.” It reflects the wanderings and experiences of the wilderness march; the watch in the night against the intrusion of the Bedouin thief, or the prowl of the wild beast; the rush of the flood, caused by torrential rain, but disappearing as quickly as on the sandy soil; the morning grass, scorched by the sirocco; the tales borne by the camp spies so soon ended; the disappointment of the springs of Marah; the inevitable leaving of Elim! the long weary days of marching, the mother and babe, the aged and little children, the weakling on the desert trail; the constant pitching and removal of tents–all these emblems of transitories, depicting the hard experiences of life’s toil and trial. Secret sins and iniquities; the averted face of God because of transgression; the death of the old at eighty, and of the young child cut down as a frail flower. Yes! But in spite of all this, God as the dwelling-place and home of the individual soul, as of the succeeding generation. Continue reading …

Daily Devotional 9.18.11

The Practice of God’s Presence

“Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalms 139:7, Psalms 139:9, Psalms 139:10)

It was in the sixteenth century, one winter’s day, as Brother Lawrence was walking in the forest, he found himself standing beneath a tree stripped of its foliage. The thought suddenly flashed on him that before very long that same tree would be covered with the leaves and glory of spring. “Then God must be here,” said he to himself, and his whole being became awed and filled with the thought of God. That impression remained with him for the rest of his life, and he said that he was more deeply impressed with the actual sense of God’s Presence in the kitchen, when he was preparing the food for his brother monks, than when he was kneeling before the Sacrament.

It is a blessed experience when the soul lives in this awareness of God; when we live, and move, and have our being in Him; whether we take the wings of the morning, and go with the sun in its passage to the western sea, or descend into the valley of the shadow of death. Continue reading …