UNDER HIS SHADOW
[p. 363] UNDER HIS SHADOW
Many Christians today are suffering from spiritual sunstroke. The sun was made “to rule the day”, and is a figure of the influences of the day. Christians who are constantly exposed to the influences that are around us in this world know that these things have a tendency to dry us up and paralyse us spiritually.
What a blessed restorative of spiritual vigour it is, after a long active day of business life, to get away from contact with men and things, and to sit down “under his shadow”! Isaiah 32 speaks of Him as “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land”. Personal sorrows and difficulties, family or business cares, and perhaps worldly temptations or persecutions crowd in upon you; and your spiritual freshness is not quite what it used to be. You need to sit down under His shadow, and the way is open for you to go to that sweet retreat and find there how He refreshes your soul.
Then there is not only shelter but abiding satisfaction to be found in thus sitting under His shadow. “His fruit was sweet to my taste”. All the present grace of His heart, and all the activity and outcome of that grace, and all the deep perfections of His adorable Person become the food and satisfaction of our souls. It is there, too, that we learn His mind and pleasure, and acquire a sense of what is suited to Him. We must know what it is to sit down before we stand up and run forth to serve. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this training for service. Mary of Bethany is an example of this, familiar to everyone. She “sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word”, and thus was she prepared for the most precious service that ever was rendered to Him.
[p. 364] Beloved young Christians, are you in the secret, personal history of your own souls tasting the joy of sitting down under His shadow? Are you finding continual satisfaction in Himself? If so, you will not want religious novels or worldly entertainments — you will not be found going in for things on the ground that there is ‘no harm’ in them — you will not be in any way dependent for happiness on the sin-stained streams of earth. Five minutes under His shadow affords more real delight than a lifetime of pleasures of the earth or of the world.
How differently we shall estimate our lives when we look back over them from the judgment-seat of Christ! How we shall judge as supreme folly the way in which we have allowed our hearts to be carried off by little things that were not worth a thought — the way in which we have allowed the devil to deceive us and occupy us with earthly things (cares as well as pleasures) when we might have had a portion like this! May the Lord truly draw our hearts more after Himself!