Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1915 — CONTACT WITH GOD [ARTICLE]

CONTACT WITH GOD

Peace and iey in the Consciousness That He Abides With Us. -And they constrained him, saying— Abide with us.”—Lake 14:29. The two disciples on the way to Em mans were full of confusion, disappointment and despair. The stranger who joined them and taught them the meaning of the Scriptures, brought a sense of order Into their chaotic minds and a feeling of mingled peace and hope into their sorrowing hearts. As they reached the door of their home they felt that they could not allow the companionship to terminate abruptly. If he had told them so much he might tell them more; if he had brought comfort he might bring them joy. So they bade him enter and abide, in order that they might carry the chance companionship into an intimate friendship. They had seen but a glimpse and felt but a touch of his extraordinary personality and they wanted more. Under the constraint he entered and revealed himself without reserve—their Savior. Is it not true that our lives are incoherent and futile and disappointing? Ia it not also true that there have been times when our hearts hava burned as we have come in contact with sacred things? We have known a little of God, and a little of Jesus Christ; perhaps if we could establish a more permanent relationship, if we could have a consciousness that God really abides with us, all the unsatisfactoriness and all , the frustration might pass away and we should hava peace and joy. Life's Vicissitudes. Every life is marked by great unevenness. We have wonderful elevations and deep depressions, moments of splendor and hours of sordid commonplaceness, dashes of divinity and periods of brutishness. Occasionally we are breathed upon by the spirit of inspiration, when we see clearly and resolve nobly, bat only to pass again into the twilight and to be torn once more by Irresolution. When we rise to our best we concede it to be religion, the influence of God upon our hearts and minds; If only it were constant we might be saints and heroes. How can these exceptional experiences be made normal? By a more sustained intimacy with Jesus Christ Our contact with him has been too casual and accidental. We have not invited him to abide with us, but have been content with the passing glimpse. If the fugitive episode can be changed into a permanent relationship, if we can come more completely under the spell of his controlling and compelling personality, we can always be at our best, and life will be satisfactory. Many have had but a glimpse of Christ’s character. We have seen it loom up out of the mists of history, easily distinguishable from every other human object, but we have never given ourselves up p> a* careful and thoughtful study of the, kind of being he mast have been. What we have seen has interested us, but it has not influenced ns to any great degree. Many have had only a glimpse of his teaching. All of ns know a few of the wonderful words that fell from his lips, because they have. become proverbs of common speech; but few of us have studied his axioms and parables and conversations aa an adequate revelation of God for human need; fewer still have deliberately tried to apply the principles that he uttered to every phase of living, private, domestic, social, commercial and political. Men and women -will find if they wish to find that the irregularities and disappointments and discrepancies of their lives are the result of an incomplete, indeed, a very partial knowledge of God. We have some truth, W* have come under his dominion occasionally, he has lifted us now and then, here and there, to great heights, but he has not held ns there. In order to carry onr lives to a consistently high elevation, to establish our hopes as convictions and our Ideals as accomplishments we need to pray the prayer of the two disciples: “Lord, abide with us.”