Often, in those moments, during those seasons, the words of scripture seem to you like "apples of gold, fitly framed". You have opened its pages and seen there almost a glow, because the Lord is speaking, through his living Word. The Spirit is breathing solace and strength into you. When that is our experience, we're maybe reminded of the words of Psalm 119 and they become ours:
Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law. (v.18)
May your unfailing love come to me, LORD,
your salvation, according to your promise; (v.41)The earth is filled with your love, LORD;
teach me your decrees. (v.64)
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant. (v.76)My soul faints with longing for your salvation,
but I have put my hope in your word. (v.81)
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. (v.97)
How blessed we are to have the Bible! Its words lead us, over and again, to the one who gave it, to knowing the Word who was made flesh, the one to whom the law pointed and who fulfils it completely. Love for God's law becomes love for our saving Lord.
But perhaps you have also known times during this year when your heart has declined. You have felt lost and helpless, aware so keenly of a cooling in your affection for the Lord. You've become conscious of a distance that has disturbed you and made you weep. Self-isolation of the soul, away from its true Lover. Let the final petition of Psalm 119 be yours:
"I have strayed like a lost sheep,
Seek your servant." (v.176)
How strange those words seem - after all the love, all the deeply-rooted affection and delight in the Lord and his Word, the psalmist speaks with anguish at his state. He has wandered, he has got himself lost. He needs to be found.
Does that sit with the rest of the psalm? Sadly, yes, and our own experience proves it. No Christian life is an endless blue sky, cloudless until the dawn of heaven breaks in a sunrise like no other. Seasons of profound gratitude, of knowing that there is no one like the Lord, that Jesus is your joy and all your hope is secure in him, can give way to barren days and weeks, seasons of regret that begin to calcify into despair.
How good, when we know the sadness of a shrivelling soul, to join the psalmist in the plea, "Seek your servant". Confessing that we have gone astray, we ask our saving Lord Jesus to come find us, and by his Spirit once more draw us back. To take us up into his arms, renew our hearts and carry us home again.
He is the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. He continually seeks us, from all the places we might wander and stumble into unseen dangers. Pour out your heart to him; he doesn't despise us for our misgivings and shame. He is the suffering Servant, the Lion of the tribe of Judah who is also the Lamb that was slain. He seeks and saves the lost, always.
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(If you're making plans for next year's Bible reading, you might be interested in a plan that isn't a plan.)
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O Thou, to whose all-searching sight
The darkness shineth as the light,
Search, prove my heart; it pants for Thee;
O burst these bonds, and set it free!
Wash out its stains, refine its dross,
Nail my affections to the Cross;
Hallow each thought; let all within
Be clean, as Thou, my Lord, art clean!
If in this darksome wild I stray,
Be Thou my Light, be Thou my Way;
No foes, no violence I fear,
No fraud, while Thou, my God, art near.
When rising floods my soul o'erflow,
When sinks my heart in waves of woe,
Jesus, Thy timely aid impart,
And raise my head, and cheer my heart.
Saviour, where'er Thy steps I see,
Dauntless, untired, I follow Thee;
O let Thy hand support me still,
And lead me to Thy holy hill!
If rough and thorny be the way,
My strength proportion to my day;
Till toil, and grief, and pain shall cease,
Where all is calm, and joy, and peace.
(Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, 1700-1760
Tr. John Wesley, 1703-91)
The darkness shineth as the light,
Search, prove my heart; it pants for Thee;
O burst these bonds, and set it free!
Wash out its stains, refine its dross,
Nail my affections to the Cross;
Hallow each thought; let all within
Be clean, as Thou, my Lord, art clean!
If in this darksome wild I stray,
Be Thou my Light, be Thou my Way;
No foes, no violence I fear,
No fraud, while Thou, my God, art near.
When rising floods my soul o'erflow,
When sinks my heart in waves of woe,
Jesus, Thy timely aid impart,
And raise my head, and cheer my heart.
Saviour, where'er Thy steps I see,
Dauntless, untired, I follow Thee;
O let Thy hand support me still,
And lead me to Thy holy hill!
If rough and thorny be the way,
My strength proportion to my day;
Till toil, and grief, and pain shall cease,
Where all is calm, and joy, and peace.
(Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, 1700-1760
Tr. John Wesley, 1703-91)
