power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recog nition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mys terious depths of the triune God neither limit nor end. Shoreless Ocean, who can sound Thee? Thine own eternity is round Thee, Majesty divine! To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too- easily-satisfied religionist, but justi fied in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. St. Bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be in stantly understood by every wor shiping soul: W e taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still- W e drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill. Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. Moses used the fact that he knew God: as an argu ment for knowing Him better. “Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight” ; and from there he rose to make the daring request, “ I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” God was frankly pleased by this display of ardor and the next day called Moses into the mount and there in solemn procession made all His glory pass before him. David’s life was a torrent of spir itual desire and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. “ That I may know him,” was the goal of
his heart and to this he sacrificed everything. “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the ex cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ.” Hymnody is sweet with the long ing after God, the God whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he has already found. “His track I see and I’ll pursue,” sang our fathers only a short generation ago but that song is heard no more in the great con gregation. How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Every thing is made to center upon the initial act of “ accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which in sists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in ortho doxy and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever be lieved otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshiping, seek ing, singing church on the subject is
crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scrip ture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd. In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowl edge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “ 0 God, show me thy glory.” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God. I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His peo ple. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain. Every age has its own character istics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The sim-
■ a m P - eace Isaiah 26:3; John 14:27
“ In perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” The peace of sunlit fields, of cloudless skies, Of distant sails upon a tranquil sea. God gives His peace, not to the one who tries, But to the one who trusts. His way is best. He leads by troubled day, through tearful night: Who trusts his God, will find God’s perfect rest. Lean on Him, heart, and He will make it right. God gives His peace, His peace He leaves with you: Not as the world that gives and takes again — God’s peace will last the whole long journey through. In joy or grief, in sunshine or in rain, God’s peace remains. Look up, be undismayed: “ Let not your heart be troubled, nor afraid.”
— by Helen Frazee-Bower
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