Psalm 61:2 From the end of the earth will I cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. An ineradicable sense of dependence inheres in every finite being as he is brought into conscious life. A created nature must go out of itself and make its sanctuary in a greater and a holier nature before it can be rightly centred and rationally satisfied. This predisposition to lean, to nestle, to seek sanctuary, is the common birthmark of everything in which there is the breath of life. Rather than have no refuge at all, the troubled man will fly to one who is weaker and less discerning than himself. He will consult an authority he cannot trust rather than be shut up within the ring-fence of his own infirm and imperfect personality. The castaway on an unknown shore will make the savage he has tempted into his service a confidant, and will teach his own speech to the parrot, so that he may hear some other voice, rather than be abandoned to his own resources. The general who has lost a battle, and whose habit it has been to maintain a severe aloofness from every member of his staff, will take counsel in the days of his defeat and humiliation with a dependant, and discuss schemes of campaign with a cook or a campfollower, rather than be left to himself. The lost traveller in the desert will yield himself at last to the instincts of his horse or camel, for he has a maddening horror of the repeated misjudgments which are taking him farther and yet farther from wells of water and palm-trees and the tents and habitations of men. We must have some kind of refuge outside ourselves, if it be but the beggar's cave. It would be a poor look-out for us if there were nothing within our horizon measuring up to a loftier altitude than our own few paltry cubits of stature. What a wilderness of peril, torture, trepidation, this earthly life would be if there were no high tower, no strong fortress, no enduring refuge, open for us to run into! We need to lean on one towering aloft above this poor, decrepit nature of ours, to fly to the overshadowing power of the Most High, to penetrate the inmost secrets of His love. We demand that which transcends ourselves, and yet is at the same time gentle, gracious, sympathizing. "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Nothing which is on our own level can quiet our fear and appease our distress. Fleeing from ourselves and from all the terrors that pursue us, bidding farewell to the very sins that seem as inseparable from us as our shadows, we may make our dwelling-place and our abiding home in the brightness of His ever faithful presence. This strong and enduring sanctuary can only afford its peace and shelter to our troubled spirits when we are willing to accept terms of reconciliation with God. "God is a refuge for us," and we cannot hide in the refuge and at one and the same time be estranged from God. The melancholy perplexity of many around us consists in this, that they crave a hiding-place from the evils and terrors which infest human life, and yet they cannot or will not turn their faces Godward. The centrifugal tendency seen in Cain when he fled from the face of the Lord, and yet shuddered at the thought of the pain, execration, antagonism, which were everywhere confronting him in his flight, reappears in us. We want to leave both God and the terrors which beleaguer our steps behind; and the two things are absolutely incompatible. We must humble our pride, consent to be contrite, accept God's truce, if we are to come into the impregnable sanctuary of His gentleness and power. (T. G. Selby.) Parallel Verses KJV: From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. |
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