DIVINE SATISFACTION OF HEART
DIVINE SATISFACTION OF HEART
“He would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee” (Psalm 81: 16). Here are two things — firstly, the best food, indicating strength, and secondly, personal affection of the highest order. The more restful you are in companionship with the Lord Jesus the more you will receive of the one and enjoy the other. The great thing we need for progress is restfulness of heart. I do not believe that there is simple restfulness of heart until union with Christ is known, not merely as a doctrine, but as the unalterable bond of affection. You are not only assured of His grace in saving you, but you have found Him so necessary to you that you cannot live without Him; then to find out that you are united to Him is absolute solace and divine restfulness. If He had not made you fit to enjoy His company, if you were not really His companion, there could be no readiness of heart for [p. 206] union with Him. Now, when the heart is in the restfulness of union, there is a manner of life consequent on it, and there are two great acquisitions, namely, food and personal affection, the finest of the wheat, and honey out of the rock. The more you enter into the blessedness of being united, the more will you seek to feed on Him in order that in everything you may be in keeping with Him. It is not now that you want to be assured that you can be near Him, but you want to be better able to comprehend Him to whom you are so near. There is a great difference between trying to be fit to be near Him, and being in conscious nearness to Him, seeking to be more in communion with Him, and to take part with Him in His interests in the knowledge of His will. Here John’s gospel comes in, and hence life and nature are there brought out more than union. You are like a wife studying her husband’s business in order that she may be in company with him therein, and in order to do this, exercising her mind in things that would increase her ability. You seek to grow up into Him in all things, and now with this ability there is His personal affection, not merely His love as God, but that individuality of affection that honey typifies. You will learn this in a twofold way — the descending affection in which He enters into all your cares and difficulties here, as a husband would to His wife, and the ascending affection when He conducts you into the things in which He is interested. His heart will then safely trust in you. May you know more and more of this perfect satisfaction, this honey which alone satisfies. There are peculiar marks or evidences of this heart satisfaction. First, the solitude of your own room will be preferred to the most attractive company. You have been satisfied by the most perfect, unique love, and hence every other is inferior to it. You value ministry, but it is ministry that unfolds Him more and more to you. The ministry that shows Him to you is what you value, whether it be in connection with your wilderness path, or in heaven, and not mere interpretations or thrilling discourses. The “watchmen” (see Song of Songs 3) know that you seek but One. You have no real anxiety but the Lord’s interests. This is wonderful experience, but the satisfied heart knows it.
[p. 207] Like Eli of old, you only care for the ark of the Lord. You do not forecast, or provide against contingencies. Finally, you are like a candle in full light, not from reputation, but from inherent satisfaction of heart derived from the Lord Himself. May you have more and more of this divine satisfaction.