'Thou openest Thine hand.' That is enough. But God cannot satisfy our
deepest desires by any such short and easy method. There is a great deal
more to be done by Him before the aspirations of love and fear and
longing for righteousness can be fulfilled. He has to breathe Himself
into us. Lower creatures have enough when they have the meat that drops
from His hand. They know and care nothing for the hand that feeds. But
God's best gifts cannot be separated from Himself. They are Himself, and
in order to 'satisfy the desires of them that fear Him' there is no way
possible, even to Him, but the impartation of Himself to the waiting
heart.
That is a mystery deep and blessed. Oh, that we may all know, by our
own living experience, what it is to have not only the gifts which drop
from His hands, but the gifts which cannot be parted from Him, the
Giver! He has to discipline us for His highest gifts, in order that we
may receive them. And sometimes He has to do that, as I have no doubt He
has done it with many of us, by withholding or withdrawing the
satisfaction of some of our lower desires, and so emptying our hearts
and turning the current of our wishes from earth to heaven. If you are
going to pour precious wine into a chalice, you begin by emptying out
the less valuable liquid that may be in it. So God often empties us, in
order that He may fill us, and takes away the creatures in order that we
may long for the Creator.
Not only has He to give us Himself, and to discipline us in order to
receive Him, but He has to put all His gifts which meet our deepest
desires into a great storehouse. He does not open His hand and give us
peace and righteousness, and growing knowledge of Himself, and closer
union, and the other blessings of the Christian life, but He gives us
Jesus Christ. We are to find all these blessings in Him, and it depends
upon us whether we find them or not, and how much of them we find. You
will always find as much in Christ as you want, but you may not find
nearly as much in Him as you could; and you will never find as much in
Him as there is. God sends His Son, and in that one gift, like a box
'wherein sweets compacted lie,' are all the gifts that even His hand can
bestow, or our desires require. So be sure that you have what you have,
and that you suck out of the Rose of Sharon all the honey that lies deep
in its calyx. Expand your desires to the width of Christ's great
mercies; for the measure of our wishes is the limit of our possession.
He has laid up the supply of all our need in the storehouse, which is
Christ; and He has given us the key. Let us see to it that we enter in.
'Ye have not because ye ask not.' 'To him that hath shall be given, and
he shall have abundance.'