August 15
Morning Verse
“Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide.” Genesis 24:63
Very admirable was his occupation. If those who spend so many hours in idle company, light reading, and useless pastimes, could learn wisdom, they would find more profitable society and more interesting engagements in meditation than in the vanities which now have such charms for them. We should all know more, live nearer to God, and grow in grace, if we were more alone. Meditation chews the cud and extracts the real nutriment from the mental food gathered elsewhere. When Jesus is the theme, meditation is sweet indeed. Isaac found Rebecca while engaged in private musings; many others have found their best beloved there.
Very admirable was the choice of place. In the field we have a study hung round with texts for thought. From the cedar to the hyssop, from the soaring eagle down to the chirping grasshopper, from the blue expanse of heaven to a drop of dew, all things are full of teaching, and when the eye is divinely opened, that teaching flashes upon the mind far more vividly than from written books. Our little rooms are neither so healthy, so suggestive, so agreeable, or so inspiring as the fields. Let us count nothing common or unclean, but feel that all created things point to their Maker, and the field will at once be hallowed.
Very admirable was the season. The season of sunset as it draws a veil over the day, befits that repose of the soul when earthborn cares yield to the joys of heavenly communion. The glory of the setting sun excites our wonder, and the solemnity of approaching night awakens our awe. If the business of this day will permit it, it will be well, dear reader, if you can spare an hour to walk in the field at eventide, but if not, the Lord is in the town too, and will meet with thee in thy chamber or in the crowded street. Let thy heart go forth to meet Him.
Morning and Evening. Charles Spurgeon ~ Devotional circa late 1800’s
“by two or three witnesses a thing is established”
Twice in the space of 15 minutes I was engaged in conversation with two separate individuals on the same subject, the beauty of the place we were in, but even more importantly, that in this beauty God was made known and present.
I am speaking of Long Pond in Cornish – Maine, a regular place of my physical regimen of swimming and increasingly a place of spiritual meditation. A public access is graciously granted by the nearby boys’ camp, and it presents a stunning view of the pond framed by the wooded hills where the sun rises on your right and sets on your left and the light plays across the landscape filtered by the trees throughout the day. I’ve often gone there to have an evening meal and write, but most recently went there with just a meal, and a sub-conscious desire to see what was to be seen. In the recent hot weather, it was still busy with families of all ages playing and floating in the water and sitting on the narrow beach. As I watched, the scene from Elohim’s world presented itself, the young man with friends under the waterfall being pounded by the force of nature and loving it. I had put the caption on the slide “Come play ~ in Elohim’s world” (at this moment as I write, a regular visitor to my door is present, known by the unmistakable yet always amazing to me vibration of a humming birds wings). The children were playing and the adults chatting within this fabulous bowl of pleasure as I wondered how aware any of them were of the intentional goodness that (humming bird again) had been placed here for their well-being.
After these conversations and this mornings’ devotional, it is clear to me that Elohim ~ Father, Son, Spirit, desires us to know Them in what They have made, and we can if we will.
