The Glorious Lord

"Thou art a God that hidest Thy­self," the prophet Isaiah said, as he looked up from his study of the processes by which God was educating His people for their great destiny. Permitted an insight into the ways of God's providence, he had beheld the rise and fall of dynasty and empire, the captivity, the exile, the restoration, the gradual elimination of idolatry and impurity, and the fusing of the entire nation into a condition in which God could use it for His own purpose; and now breaking away from his long and intent scrutiny of the ways of God, he breaks out with the cry, "Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself, 0 God of Israel, the Saviour."
It is an exclamation that often rises to our lips in nature. We are always treading in the recent footprints of God; entering chambers that He seems just to have left; catching the glow of light which has just fallen from His face; but we always miss him. We go for­ward, and He is not there, and back­ward, but cannot perceive Him; we speak, and feel that He hears, but there is no reply; we look up, and know that He is looking down, but we cannot see Him; we feel after Him, and are conscious that His hand is some­where within reach, but we never touch it. Men talk of law, and force, but what are these expressions save confessions that God, the mighty worker, is hidden from our view?