'When the ark rested, he said, "Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands
of Israel."' As I said at the beginning of these remarks, the pillar of
cloud seems to have taken two forms, braced together upright when it
moved, diffused and stretched as a shelter and a covering over the host
of Israel when it and they were at rest. In like manner, that divine
Presence is Protean in its forms, and takes all shapes, according to
the moment's necessities of the Christian trusting heart. When we are
to brace ourselves for the march it condenses itself into an upright
and moving guide. When we lay ourselves down with relaxed muscles for
repose, it softly expands itself and 'covers our head' in the hours of
rest, 'as in the day of battle.'
Ah! brother, we have more need of God in times of repose than in times
of effort. It is harder to realise His Presence in the brief hours of
relaxation than even in the many hours of strenuous toil. Every one who
goes for a holiday knows that. You have only to look at the sort of
amusements that most people fly to when they have not anything to do,
to see that there is quite as much, if not more, peril to communion of
soul with God in times when the whole nature is somewhat relaxed, and
the strings are loosened, like those of a violin screwed down a turn or
two of the peg, than there is in times of work.
So let us take special care of our hours of repose, and be quite sure
that they are so spent as that we can ask when the day's work is done,
and we have come to slippered ease, in preparation for nightly rest,
'Return, O Lord, unto Thy waiting servant.' Work without God unfits for
rest with Him. Rest without God unfits for work for Him.
We may take these two petitions as tests of the allowableness of any
occupation, or of any relaxation. Dare I ask Him to come with me into
that field of work? If I dare not, it is no place for me. Dare I ask
Him to come with me into this other chamber of rest? If I dare not, I
had better never cross its threshold. Take these two prayers, and where
you cannot pray them, do not risk yourself.
But the highest form of the contrast between the two waits still to be
realised. For life as a whole is a fight, and beyond it there is the
'rest that remaineth,' where there will be not merely God's 'return
unto the thousands of Israel,' but the realisation of His fuller
presence, and of deeper rest, which shall be wondrously associated with
more intense work, though in that work there will be no conflict. The
two petitions will flow together then, for whilst we labour we shall
rest; and whilst we rest we shall labour, according to the great
sayings, 'they rest from their labours,' and yet 'they rest not day nor
night.'