| Finding the Way |
Chapter 1 |
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There are particular times, also, when we need to make the prayer for direction with special earnestness. There are times when every star seems to have gone out, and when clouds and darkness appear to have gathered about us, hiding every way mark, so that we cannot see any way out of the gloom and perplexity. We need then to have God’s direction, or we shall perish. In the darkest hour of Christ’s life, when He could not see even His Father’s face, and cried out like one forsaken, He still kept His faith in God firm and strong. It was still, “My God, my God.” But while there are times when we need guidance in an unusual way, there is no day in all our brightest year when we do not need it, when we dare to go forward one step without it. The day we do not seek and obtain God’s leading will be a day of disaster for us. The day we go forth without prayer for divine blessing, when we do not lay our hand in Christ’s as we go out into the great world, is a day of peril for us.
Indeed, we often need the divine guidance the most when we think we do not need it at all. On the other hand, it is often true that the experiences we dread, in which we seem to be left without help, when the darkness appears most dense about us and we cannot see the way, even a step, before us, are really fullest of God. We cry out then for deliverance, not knowing that it is God who is leading us into the shadows. It is when the sun goes down that we see the stars. Ofttimes it is when the light of human love is quenched that the face of Christ is first really revealed, or revealed as never before. We cry, “Show me the way,” thinking that we have lost the way, and crying to be led back into it, when lo! The clouds part and we see Christ close beside us, and know that He has been beside us all the time.
“And that Thou sayest, ‘Go,’
Our hearts are glad, for He is still thy friend,
And best loved of all, whom Thou dost send
The farthest from thee: this Thy servants know.
Oh, send by whom Thou wilt, for they are blest
Who go Thine errands. Not upon Thy breast
We learn Thy secrets. Long beside Thy tomb
We wept, and lingered in the garden gloom;
And oft we sought Thee in Thy house of prayer
And in the desert, yet Thou wast not there:
But as we journeyed sadly through a place
Obscure and mean, we lighted on the trace
Of Thy fresh footprints, and a whisper clear
Fell on our spirits–Thou Thyself was near;
And from Thy servants’ hearts Thy name adored
Brake forth in fire; we said, ‘It is the Lord.’”
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