Trench: the human need of support

Wednesday, June 29, 2016
    Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles
Meditation:
If we had forgotten the name of our God
    or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
    For he knows the secrets of the heart.
    —Psalm 44:20-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to bless and sustain him, he will have some false god to delude and to betray him. The Psalmist knew this, and therefore he joined so closely the forgetting the name of our God, and holding up our hands to some strange god. For every man has something in which he hopes, on which he leans, to which he retreats and retires, with which he fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time, when he is alone, when he lies sleepless on his bed, when he is not pressed with other thoughts; to which he betakes himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from which he shall draw comfort and strength—his fortress, his citadel, his defence; and has not this a good right to be called his god? Man was made to lean on the Creator; but if not on Him, then he leans on the creature in one shape or another. The ivy cannot grow alone: it must twine round some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then th! e ragged thorn; round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing.
    ... Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886), Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey, New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1860, p. 252 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 44:20-21; Ex. 9:29; Josh. 24:23; Ps. 81:8-9; Jer. 5:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, there is no Name like Yours. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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