1 Chronicles 22:19 Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God; arise therefore, and build you the sanctuary of the LORD God… In the struggle of life many men and women are hampered and depressed by the memory of past weaknesses, errors, and sins. The hours of their real spiritual prosperity are overshadowed and embittered by the recollection of their spiritual adversities. It is one of the wise and helpful laws of our nature that in freeing ourselves from weakness and sin we do not free ourselves from the memory of them. The value of the experience lies in the lesson we learn from it, and the truest repentance is often witnessed by the poignancy of the sorrow, and both the lesson and the sorrow have their roots in memory. But, while we are not to forget that we have sometimes fallen, we are not always to carry the mud with us; the slough is behind, but the clean, clearly-defined road stretches ahead of us, skies are clear, and God is beyond. We were made for purity, truth, and fidelity, and the very abhorrence of the opposites of these qualities, which grows and deepens within us, bears testimony that our aspirations are becoming our attainments. The really noble thing about any man or woman is not freedom from all stains of the lower life, but the deathless aspiration which for ever drives us forward and will not let us rest in any past, whether good or bad. That which makes us respect ourselves is not what men call a blameless career, but the hunger and thirst after God which makes all our doing unsatisfying and inadequate to us. Better a thousand times the eager and passionate fleeing to God from a past of faults and weaknesses, with an irresistible longing for rest in the everlasting verities, than the most respectable career which misses this profound impulse. The past, remains with us to remind us of our perils and our constant need of help, but it ought not to haunt and oppress us. The real life of an aspiring soul is always ahead, We are not fleeing from the devil, but seeking God. (Lyman Abbott.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the LORD God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be built to the name of the LORD. |
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