| Finding the Way |
Chapter 9 |
Page 4 |
There is wonderful inspiration in the knowledge and consciousness that God loves us. A newsboy was in the habit of running after a gentleman on the ferry boat and brushing his coat with affectionate fondness. One day the gentleman asked him, “Why are you so careful with me every morning?” The boy answered, “Because once, when you bought a paper, you said, ‘My child!’ No one ever called me his child before. That’s the reason. I love you for saying that to me.” It was the first love the boy had found in this world, and it was like heaven to him. It is a blessed moment to us when we first realize that God is our Father, and calls us His own children. It fills us with unspeakable joy. It brings the love of God about us in floods. It lifts us up into heaven in our experience.
If we keep ourselves in the love of God, the love of God will enter into us and fill us. We seem to have now but a small measure of this Divine love in us. We are unloving in our own lives. We chafe easily when others irritate us. We are readily vexed and offended and hold grudges and resentments. If God were like us, what would become of us? If He were as unforbearing, unforgiving, and uncharitable as we are, if He had no more mercy on us than we have on those who unintentionally or intentionally hurt us, what would become of us? But if we keep ourselves in the love of God, all this is changed. The love in us transforms us into its own spirit. If a bar of iron lies in the fire for a time, it becomes red hot – the fire enters into the iron and transfigures it. A lump of clay lying on a rose becomes fragrant – the rose’s sweetness enters into it. A grain of musk in a bureau drawer fills all the garments in the drawer with its perfume. If we keep ourselves in the love of God, in the atmosphere of that love, our whole being becomes saturated with it until we live as God lives. It was written of one Christian man–
“His life grew fragrant with the inner soul.
And weary folk who passed him on the street
Saw Christ’s love beam from out the wistful eyes,
And had new confidence in God and men.”
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