The Night Watches

The Omnipresence of God
Psa 63:6; 130:6; 42:8

By John MacDuff

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" Psalm 139:7

The omnipresence of God! How baffling to any finite comprehension! To think that above us, and around us, and within as, there is nothing but Deity — the invisible footprints of an Omniscient, Omnipresent One! "His eyes are in every place;" on rolling planets and tiny atoms, on the bright seraph and the lowly worm — roaming in searching scrutiny through the tracks of immensity, and reading the dark and hidden page of my heart! "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

God, I feel Your presence near,
Everywhere over nature's face;
Wherever I turn my eye,
Your living footsteps trace!
Nothing can sever me from Thee —
Everywhere You are with me!"

O God! shall this Your Omnipresence appall me? No, in my seasons of sadness and sorrow and loneliness — when other comforts and comforters have failed — when, it may be, in the darkness and silence of some midnight hour, in vain I have sought repose — how sweet to think, "My God is here!" I am not alone. The Omniscient One, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, is hovering over my sleepless pillow. "He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps!" O my Unsetting Sun, it cannot be darkness or loneliness or sadness where You are. There can be no night to the soul which has been cheered with Your glorious radiance!

"Lo! I am with you always!" How precious, blessed Jesus, is this Your legacy of parting love! In the midst of Your Church until the end of time — ever present, omnipresent. The true "Pillar of cloud" by day and of "fire by night," preceding and encamping by us in every step of our wilderness journey. My soul! think of Him, at this moment, in the mysteriousness of His Godhead nature — and yet, with all the exquisitely tender sympathies of a glorified Humanity, as present with every member of the family He has redeemed with His blood! Yes, and as much present with every individual soul, as if He had none other to care for, but as if that one engrossed all His affection and love!

The Great Builder, surveying every stone and pillar of His spiritual temple- the Great Shepherd, with His eye on every sheep of His fold — the Great High Priest and Elder Brother, marking every tear-drop; noting every sorrow — listening to every prayer — knowing the peculiarities of every case; no number perplexing Him — no variety bewildering Him; able to attend to all, and overtake all, and answer all- myriads drawing hourly from His Treasury, and yet no diminution of that Treasury — ever emptying, and yet ever filling, and always full!

Jesus! Your perpetual and all-pervading presence turns darkness into day! I am not left unbefriended to weather the storms of life, if Your hand be from hour to hour piloting my frail bark. Gracious antidote to every earthly sorrow — "I have set the Lord always before me!" Even now, as night is drawing its curtains around me, be this my closing prayer — 'Blessed Savior! abide with me, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent!' Under the shadowing wings of Your presence and love, "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8