Evening, September 16
Go To Morning Reading
“Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?”
Job 7:12
This was a strange question for Job to ask of the Lord. He felt himself
to be too insignificant to be so strictly watched and chastened, and
he hoped that he was not so unruly as to need to be so restrained.
The enquiry was natural from one surrounded with such insupportable
miseries, but after all, it is capable of a very humbling answer.
It is true man is not the sea, but he is even more troublesome and
unruly. The sea obediently respects its boundary, and though it be
but a belt of sand, it does not overleap the limit. Mighty as it is,
it hears the divine hitherto , and when most raging with tempest it respects the word; but self-willed
man defies heaven and oppresses earth, neither is there any end to
this rebellious rage. The sea, obedient to the moon, ebbs and flows
with ceaseless regularity, and thus renders an active as well as a
passive obedience; but man, restless beyond his sphere, sleeps within
the lines of duty, indolent where he should be active. He will neither
come nor go at the divine command, but sullenly prefers to do what
he should not, and to leave undone that which is required of him.
Every drop in the ocean, every beaded bubble, and every yeasty foam-flake,
every shell and pebble, feel the power of law, and yield or move at
once. O that our nature were but one thousandth part as much conformed
to the will of God! We call the sea fickle and false, but how constant
it is! Since our fathers’ days, and the old time before them, the sea is where it was, beating
on the same cliffs to the same tune; we know where to find it, it
forsakes not its bed, and changes not in its ceaseless boom; but where
is man-vain, fickle man? Can the wise man guess by what folly he will
next be seduced from his obedience? We need more watching than the
billowy sea, and are far more rebellious. Lord, rule us for thine
own glory. Amen.