Psalms 23:2

Psalms 23:2

We have now to do only with Christ in waters of quietness, those which He makes for us, which He chooses for us, and to which He only He guides us.

I. You have had to do with painful changes. Faces have altered; many are gone. There have been strange removals. There have been reversals of fortune. Everything has been shaken. You can scarcely be sure of anything. Let Jesus take you up and make you to converse a little while with the grandnesses of the unchangeable and the undying; with the eternities of truth; with the calmnesses of the invisible; with Himself.

II. Or you have had a great joy, and it is too much for you. Even the tideway of your happiness is too high. You feel oppressed with your mercies. Let Him add composure to your delight, and make the rivers of rapture what they ought to be, "waters of quietness," for a quiet mind is essential to the pureness of the joy. A future of great expectation may be almost as disquieting to the mind as a future of fear, unless He mingle His peace with the full flow of the incoming life. Many waters sparkle, but only His waters are always still.

III. Notice one or two ways by which you may cultivate a quiet mind. (1) Do not seek quietness. Do not seek peace. But seek Christ. (2) Follow Christ wherever He takes you. He is leading you to quietness, and you will only get to it by following Him implicitly. (3) Yield yourself to His leadings. (4) As you go, realise yourself undertaken for in everything, both spiritually and temporally. (5) Christ is peace. You have become partakers of His nature. Your being identifies itself with His. And you are peace simply because He is peace.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,10th series, p. 29.

References: Psalms 23:2. Bishop Thorold, The Presence of Christ,p. 39; M. G. Pearse, Some Aspects of the Blessed Life,p. 213.Psalms 23:2; Psalms 23:3. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 67; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 5.