| Finding the Way |
Chapter 9 |
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Yet that is not what is meant in the exhortation to keep ourselves in the love of God. We all know something of the experience of discouragement which ofttimes comes when the duty of loving God is pressed upon us. Our love seems so feeble, so unsatisfactory, and so much less intense than it should be, and so fitful and changeable, that it does not comfort us to think of it. It is well, therefore, that we are not asked to measure our faith by the degree of our love of God. If this were the index, our heart’s joy would be sadly variable. It is well that we have for our comfort something better than our poor, fitful love for God.
“Our love so faint, so cold to Thee,
And Thine to us so great.”
We are taught to keep ourselves in God’s love, in its blessed warmth, believing in it, trusting in it, letting it flood our lives.
“Thine the bearing and forbearing
Trough the patient years;
Thine the loving, and the moving
Plea of sacred tears.
“Mine the leaving and the grieving
Of thy mournful eyes;
Mine the fretting and forgetting
Of our blood bound ties.
“Mine the wrecking, Thine the building,
Of my happiness–
My only Saviour, help me make
The dreadful difference less.”
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