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. No irreligious man, no liver of the lower life, no man sunk in the material, could pray this prayer. It is the cry of the spiritually awakened man, for only he knows there is anything higher than himself, and only he would ever cry out for its possession. 1. This man's conception of Deity has two sides to it — a physical and supernatural. He conceives God in the form of a natural and poetical image; sees Him as a Rock. To others God might be Father, lover, friend, but to him He was the rock, that against which birds and armies and tempests dash themselves to pieces, but also that on which flowers bud out of the winds, and birds build their nests, and men hide from the march of tempests. But it is possible that in this other phrase "higher than I" — we have another conception of the Divine. Change "higher than I" into "too high for me," and you have the conception which held his mind. Too high! i.e. on a higher level, of another order, of a greatness I can never attain, nor match, nor rival! Too high, i.e. God is everything man is not. Man, frail, tainted, limited, weak, foolish. God, enduring, holy, omnipotent, unchangeable, all-wise. Too high! i.e. beyond human apprehension I "Too high for me," makes Him the unknowable, the unsearchable splendour, homed in unapproachable light, and worshipped from afar. 2. This discovery and conception of the Divine is not without its effect on the man. First it creates a thirst, a desire in the man. The vision breaks up his self-content, and fills him with a heavenward longing. "O Rock, Thou the timeless, the restful, the immutable, let me hide myself in Thee." Man is but the lichen that would root itself on the unshaken and unshakable. The other effect is of a different character. It is said that the revelation of God is the revelation of a man's self. When Job saw God, he cried, "I abhor myself." When Isaiah beheld Him, he exclaimed, "I am a man of unclean lips." Everywhere else man is the all — the king — only in the temple is he the little helpless child with no language but a cry. Man can see the good, dream it, idealize it; he can long for the good, love it, worship it, but it is his disappointment and his hell that he knows it is not in him to be it, to win it, nor possess it. 3. With this point the experience seems to terminate. When man reaches the point of inability, he reaches the end. There is nothing more for him to do than to sit down, fold his hands and wait for the inevitable. If he cannot, he cannot, and he can only acquiesce in his helplessness. But such a termination is impossible. The point where man breaks down is the point where the Divine enters and begins its miracles. The revelation is meant to set the human in action, to lift him to something higher. Instead, therefore, of the conception ending with inability, it ends with a sobbing prayer. It is an appeal for means — "Cut steps in the cliff that I may climb it, let down the rope and draw me up." It is an appeal for help — "I stagger with fatigue and weakness, put an arm round me and help me up the stone-strewn steeps." It is a cry for guidance — "Take my hand and guide me, and put my foot on the first stair of the stairway that leads to Thee." It is a cry for light — "I am confused with fear and doubt, give me light that I may see the way that leads to Thee." It is a cry for shelter — "Suns smite me, and sanddrifts sweep over me, and the whole landscape reels and swims; lift me into the shadow of Thy wings." It is a cry for salvation — "I cling to Thee, but the storm beats and the waves drag and my hold is slipping, put out Thy hand and draw me from the hungry waters." It is the prayer of the helpless, the appeal of the human to the Divine — man in his weakness casting himself on the benevolence and omnipotence of Deity, man in his despair abandoning himself to God. Lead me, let me reach Thee, dwell with Thee, and be one with Thee for ever. (C. E. Stone.) 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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