gentle Wooer, come. Amen.
Week 4 Thursday
Who Can Find God?
Luke 11:9-13
We must look at two other things before we can come to grips with finding God. Many feel that since Jesus called his disciples away from their ordinary occupations, we must now leave ordinary so-called secular life to find God. This is a mistake. Jesus did ask twelve disciples to leave their occupations and follow him, but did he not in the very act of calling them approve their occupation by filling their boats with fish? And did not one hundred and twenty disciples wait in the upper room for the Holy Spirit, perhaps only twelve of whom had left their occupations?
“Shall I be a student, or shall I be a religious man?” asked a Hindu youth of me one day. I could reply only that I saw no conflict; if he found God, he should be a better student. Before Christ came into my life, I was at the bottom of my classes; afterward I felt that the bottom of the class was no place for a Christian, and left it. I found myself studying my lessons on bended knees, praying my way through.
Any legitimate occupation can be lifted into a sacrament. There are those, especially in India, who feel that one has to be mature, even old, to find God. But the Christian way is different. At question time one day, I asked, “Where is God?” A little fellow of five excitedly whispered to his mother: “Why, I can answer that. He is in my heart.” He was right! I received this note, written in block letters: “It works. Wonderfully and well. Thank you for this. Signed, Jivan Ratman, aged 12 years.”
It does work, even for the child, and may I say, especially for the child, for to find the kingdom we must catch the childlike attitude of open frankness and willingness to follow.
O Christ, you hallow every worthy occupation and open the gates of life to the little child. In your Father’s house is the sound of the hammer and the laughter of little children as well as the quiet oratory for prayer. We thank you. Amen.
Week 4 Friday
Facing the Issues
Luke 11:33-36
The barriers to finding God are not on God’s side, but on ours. Since God is seeking us, then the problem is not in our finding God, but in letting God find us. We must put ourselves in the way of being found by God. Some of us are not there. There are definite barriers on our side.
Some barriers are intellectual. People have honest doubts, and I have spent many years in meeting those doubts, perhaps too many years, for I now see that the problem is usually deeper. Not always, but usually.
For instance, a young man came puzzled about the Trinity. I replied that the emphasis in Christianity was not upon the Trinity but upon the Incarnation. The doctrine of the Trinity was rather overheard than heard in the New Testament, but still I could see why the Trinity is reasonable. The lowest life is the simplest life; the amoeba is a single cell, but as we come up in the scale of existence complexity emerges, so that when we come to man we find a highly complex being made up of body, mind, and spirit—humanity is a trinity. The movement of life, then, seems to be from the simple to the complex. When we get to the highest of life of all—God—we should expect, not simplicity, but complexity. The Trinity is thus a natural culmination. But the movement of life upward is toward unity amid complexity. Humanity is a trinity but also a unity. So in God, there is a richer unity in the richer Trinity.
I waited to see if my answer had any effect. It had none. By a swift insight, I saw the young man’s problem was not intellectual, but moral. I put my hand on his, and quietly asked if he was pure. His eyes dropped. He was not. His trouble was not honest doubt, but dishonest sin.
O God, hold us steady at this point. Help us to be absolutely honest, and it may be that, as the barriers go down, your presence shall strangely warm our hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Week 4 Saturday
We Apply the Tests
Matthew 5:8; 2 Corinthians 13:5-8; 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22; 1 John 3:3
We saw yesterday that moral wrongness makes intellectual blindness. It is easier to live yourself into right thinking than to think yourself into right living. In a moral world, the deepest organ of knowledge is moral response. Without that we are blind, however much we may think. So we must look at the moral barriers. They are not the only barriers, but we cannot get on unless we take them down.
I have a friend whose moral and spiritual influence is potent and penetrating. I discovered the secret of it in his relentlessness toward himself. Once a week he goes aside and examines his life in the light of five pointed questions. In the quietness before God, in an air of absolute realism in which there is no equivocation, he examines his life:
1. Am I truthful? Are there any conditions under which I will or do tell a lie? Can I be depended on to tell the truth, no matter the cost? Yes or no?
2. Am I honest? Can I be absolutely trusted in money matters? In my work? With other people’s reputations? Yes or no?
3. Am I pure? In my relationships with women? In my habits? In my thought life? Yes or no?
4. Am I easily offended, or am I loving? Do I lose my temper? Am I quick to sense slights? Or am I taking the attitude of love, which refuses to be offended? Yes or no?
5. Am I selfish, or am I consecrated? What am I living for: myself, my own position, money, place, power? Or are my powers at the disposal of human need? At the disposal of the kingdom? Again I ask, what am I living for: myself or others?
As we are about to go on, let us put ourselves before ourselves and look at ourselves. The bravest moments of our lives are the moments when we look at ourselves objectively—without wincing, without explaining away.
O Christ, it was said that you know what is in every person. We do not even know what is in ourselves, for we have never looked at ourselves with honest eyes. Help us do it this day in your name. Amen.
Week 5 Sunday
Week 5 Sunday
Am I Truthful?
Acts 5:1-11
One of the test questions of character is this: Will I lie? And yet how easy it is to lie—even for religious people—the willingness to twist a meaning to gain a point, to misquote if the misquotation gains an end, to exaggerate to make impressions, to present less than the whole truth in making appeals for funds, or to misrepresent goods for sale! What is at the basis of this looseness with the truth? Is it not often in the fact that we think a lie is sometimes justifiable?
I once asked some students whether a lie is ever justifiable and got these answers: (1) yes, in business, (2) in politics, (3) to save a life, and (4) in war. One argued (5) that it is all right to tell a little lie on behalf of a great cause. She wasn’t sure of a big lie! The students thought that the ability to lie well was an asset. They did not see it as a liability.
Get hold of the two principles that Presbyterian mission leader Robert Elliott Speer lays down: First, God cannot lie. Second, God cannot delegate to you the privilege of lying for God. Truth is inviolable. The early Christians standing before Roman tribunals—their lives in the balance—could tell the slightest lie and be saved. They refused. They could die, but not lie. A Hindu doctor asked the compounder (pharmacist) why he didn’t give the two women before him their prescriptions. He affirmed he had. The women said he hadn’t.
