teller for a charity function. As a Christian, she thought it would all be a joke. With her very first customer, she realized the gravity of the situa tion. Right at the very start, she con fronted a housewife of 55 who didn’t get along with her mother-in-law. Then there was a businessman who had been divorced and remarried and wanted to know if his second marriage now on shaky ground, would work out. A pleasant-seeming married woman with two teenage daughters, obviously from a well-to-do home, had a marriage which was fast disintegrating. An at tractive young wife of a serviceman was having an illicit love affair with a neighbor and wanted to know if she should continue. Each situation had its own heart-breaking aspects. These cru cial problems were brought to a gypsy, one about whose character and creden tials they knew absolutely nothing. Yet, these groping individuals regarded what they heard as unquestionable truth; really they were to act on any counsel received. At the end of the experiment, the exhausted woman com mented, “Think of it! I was a Chris tian pretending to be a crystal-gazer. Why did these folks come to me, rather than to someone they might know to be a Christian?” Could it be that the rea son people in trouble may not seek us out for spiritual guidance is because they’ve seen that we don’t practice what we preach? There is certainly no room for hypocrisy, pride or selfishness. The truths we learn on Sunday must 23
A DIFFICULT THING What would you think might be the hardest task in all the world to accom plish? Some might conceive of a special muscular feat, an acrobatic challenge, or. even an assignment on the battle field. Consider this for a moment. Haven’t you found that in difficult circumstances, sometimes that hardest thing is just simply to say the three words, “I am sorry,” Or, likewise, the other three hard ones to admit, “7 was wrong.” No one likes to make such admissions. But after all, we’re human; everybody makes mistakes. We’ve all sinned. Yet, God in His great grace, gives power to live above one’s circum stances so that we might dwell in the glory of Christ’s own will. May the Holy Spirit speak to us today, giving us the courage and conviction of our faith, in Him who so loved us and washed us in His own blood. If you are concerned about your needs, remember God gives every bird food, but He doesn’t throw it into the nest. CONSISTENCY With the Bible at our fingertips, and the Holy Spirit as our constant guide, the Christian can face the future with confidence. More or less as an experi ment, a young 27-year-old housewife agreed to masquerade as a fortune
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