"While I see Your love to me,
Every object teems with joy;
Here, oh may I walk with Thee,
Then into Your presence die!
"You to praise, and You to know,
Constitute my bliss below;
You to see, and You to love,
Constitute my bliss above."—Toplady
"I shall be satisfied, when I awake, in your likeness."
-Psalm 17:15.
What a glorious awaking, after earth's unquiet dream!
With God! Like God! Happiness has been well defined to be "the
harmonizing of the finite will with the Infinite." On earth that harmonizing
is never perfect. There are disturbing forces in the moral atmosphere
tempting the soul ever and anon, like some wandering planet, to break loose
from the sphere of the Divine favor, and pursue a devious and erratic orbit.
Strange, indeed, that, despite of lessons constantly enforced, it should
cling so fondly to the delusion that there are elements of
heart-satisfying happiness independent of God. Vain thought! Even when the
objects on which the affections are lavished seem the purest and noblest,
there is ever a consciousness of unfulfilled longings, yearnings after
something better, which earth cannot give. In this chase after happiness
a point may be reached, but not the point. In grasping the
imaginary good, it is but a shadow. It appeared, in approaching, fair and
captivating. It proved, in reality, a piece of fairy frost-work; on touching
it, it fell apart.
But in Heaven the harmonizing will be complete. Man's
will and love will there be entirely subordinate to the will and love of
God. The lineaments of the Divine image, erased and effaced at the Fall,
will be there again imprinted. There will be no competing affection to
alienate from the great Source of happiness—no vacuum requiring anything
else to fill it. The rills will be unneeded in the presence of the great
Fountain-Head—Him who is essential love, essential goodness, essential
glory.
"Lord," says Augustine, "You have made us for
Yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it reposes in You!" Those
immortal powers and energies and affections made for God, will then repose
forever in God. There will be nothing more to be desired or longed for; and
the rejoicing soul, gazing around on the floods of the excellent glory, will
be able to say, "I am satisfied!"
"Once I dreamed," says Payson, "of being transported to
heaven; and being surprised to find myself so calm and tranquil in the midst
of my happiness, I inquired the cause. The reply was, When you were on
earth, you resembled a bottle but partly filled with water, which was
agitated by the least motion—now you are like the same bottle filled to the
brim, which cannot be disturbed." Yes! then every soul will become a
temple, and its distinguishing glory will be that of Solomon's on the day of
consecration—"the house was filled with the glory of the Lord!" (1
Kings 8:11.) Other and minor sources of happiness there may be. There may be
the waving of incense, sounds of sweet melody, the high praises of God
chanted by a mighty multitude which no man can number, and the lofty
companionship of cherubim and seraphim; but the believer's pre-eminent
dignity and blessedness will consist in his own soul becoming a consecrated
shrine for the mystic Shekinah—"God dwelling in him, and he
in God."
Reader! whatever be the Divine dealings and discipline in
fitting you for such a Heaven, and such a likeness, submit to them. To
employ a well-known but beautiful illustration—The refining of silver is not
complete, until the refiner beholds his own image reflected brightly in the
fused metal. And if He who calls Himself "a Refiner of silver" keeps you
long in the crucible—subjecting you for long to the furnace—it is only that
every grain and speck of alloy may be purged away, and that in Heaven you
may awake rejoicing, and "satisfied" in "His likeness."
What a glorious, what a strange transformation! Who would
recognize the spirit that is now chafed and buffeted with temptation and
sin, corruption and iniquity, then made resplendent with the image of a holy
God? As the shapeless, unseemly root of the flower or plant struggling amid
rubbish and stones and cheerless darkness, after fastening its fibers in the
soil, sends up a graceful stalk, efflorescing in loveliness and beauty, its
leaves waving in the sunlight, and filling the summer air with their
fragrance—so will it be with the soul. It is here sown in corruption. It
fastens its roots in a world dark and cheerless, by reason of sin. Its
immortal fibers are nursed and disciplined amid trials and sorrows,
difficulties and perplexities. It is soiled and degraded with the
corruptible elements through which it has to fight its upward way. But there
is a glorious summer-time at hand, when the root thus nurtured shall burst
its mortal chains, and its leaves and blossoms shall not only be bathed in
the hues of heaven, but their every tint will be resplendent with a glory
reflected from the Great Source of all light and joy.