Our little child has fallen and bruised herself badly. The flesh is black and blue and swollen. Her eyes fill with tears, her lips quiver, and her whole body is trembling with the pain and the fright. Her countenance and her very attitude are a pitiful appeal for help and sympathy.
What is to be done in such a case? Every parent knows what is the first impulse, and what brings the most speedy relief. Soothing remedies may be applied, but the greatest relief comes from the folding in the mother's arms, and the loving kisses of sympathy that are bestowed. The little one settles down quietly, the strain is relaxed, the trembling ceases, and soon the pain is forgotten.
What a common occurrence this is, and yet how slow we are to learn the lesson it suggests. "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:13-14)
We are but children. Compared with God, we are far more helpless than our children are compared with us. God deals with us as sons, for we are His children; and His love and pity for us are as much greater than ours for our children as God is greater than we are. Think of that statement, "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." (Psalm 103:13)
He pities them in just the came way, only infinitely more. That is to say, He takes us up in His arms, if we will but come to Him, knowing that He is our Father, and He soothes the pain and heals the bruise. For, "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:3)
Christ says, "Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Him "to heal the broken-hearted, ... to set at liberty them that are bruised," (Luke 4:18) "to comfort all that mourn." (Isaiah 61:2)
That is just what we need. We have fallen and are sorely bruised. We are "laden with iniquity ... the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." (Isaiah 1:4-6)
Our need is desperate. Believing that the Lord is indeed our Father, we come to Him, and find that His arms are stretched out to receive us. He says, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." (Isaiah 66:13)
What does this mean but that He will take us up in His arms? How else does a mother comfort her babes? When Jesus was on earth, He took up the little ones in His arms, (Mark 10:16) and in so doing He was but manifesting the love and tenderness of the Father. We are sadly battered and bruised by sin. But, "He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. ... He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for ouriniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:4-5)
How blessed is the assurance that:
There is mercy with the Saviour;
There is healing in His blood.
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
--Frederick William Faber, Hymn: There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, 1862.
These things are real. They are not figures of speech. They are as real as God himself. To doubt the reality of God's comfort, to doubt that "underneath are the everlasting arms," (Deuteronomy 33:27) and that God does as really fold us in His embrace as the earthly father does his child, is to doubt the reality of the existence of God. We cannot know anything of God except as He reveals himself to us. To doubt that He is just what He declares himself to be, is to doubt that He exists at all.
But in all His Word He has revealed himself as the tender, pitying, loving Parent. Let us then come to Him believing that He is, and that He delights in mercy. Then, having tasted that the Lord is precious, we shall say, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for your love is better than wine." (Song of Solomon 1:2)
Why not allow the Lord to be as real to us as He actually is?
If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.
--Frederick William Faber, Hymn: There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, 1862.
--Present Truth, April 25, 1895--Psalm 103:13-14.