'My soul followeth hard after Thee.' The two things come together,
longing and fruition, as I have said. Fruition begets longing, and there
is swift and blessed alternation, or rather co-existence of the two.
Joyful consciousness of possession and eager anticipation of larger
bestowments are blended still more closely, if we adhere to the original
meaning of the words of this last clause, than they are in our
translation, for the psalm really reads, 'My soul cleaveth after Thee.'
In the one word 'cleaveth,' is expressed adhesion, like that of the
limpet to the rock, conscious union, blessed possession; and in the
other word 'after Thee' is expressed the pressing onwards for more and
yet more. But now contrast that with the issue of all other methods of
satisfying human appetites, be they lower or be they higher. They result
either in satiety or in a tyrannical, diseased appetite which increases
faster than the power of satisfying it increases. The man who follows
after other good than God, has at the end to say, 'I am sick, tired of
it, and it has lost all power to draw me,' or he has to say, 'I
ravenously long for more of it, and I cannot get any more.' 'He that
loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth
abundance with increase.' You have to increase the dose of the narcotic,
and as you increase the dose, it loses its power, and the less you can
do without it the less it does for you. But to drink into the one God
slakes all thirsts, and because He is infinite, and our capacity for
receiving Him may be indefinitely expanded; therefore,
'Age cannot wither, nor custom stale
His infinite variety';
but the more we have of God, the more we long for Him, and the more we
long for Him the more we possess Him.
Brethren! these are the possibilities of the Christian life; being its
possibilities they are our obligations. The Psalmist's words may well be
turned by us into self-examining interrogations and we may--God grant
that we do!--all ask ourselves; 'Do I thus thirst after God?' 'Have I
learned that, notwithstanding all supplies, this world without Him is a
waterless desert? Have I experienced that whilst I call He answers, and
that the water flows in as soon as I open my heart? And do I know the
happy birth of fresh longings out of every fruition, and how to go
further and further into the blessed land, and into my elastic heart
receive more and more of the ever blessed God?'
These texts of mine not only set forth the ideal for the Christian life
here, but they carry in themselves the foreshadowing of the life
hereafter. For surely such a merely physical accident as death cannot be
supposed to break this golden sequence which runs through life. Surely
this partial and progressive possession of an infinite good, by a nature
capable of indefinitely increasing appropriation of, and approximation
to it is the prophecy of its own eternal continuance. So long as the
fountain springs, the thirsty lips will drink. God's servants will live
till God dies. The Christian life will go on, here and hereafter, till
it has reached the limits of its own capacity of expansion, and has
exhausted God. 'The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
of water, springing up into everlasting life.'