great areas of the unknown land and sea such fearful inscriptions as, “Here be giants! Here be fiery scorpions! Here be dragons!” Years later, a scien tist, who was a born-again Christian, Sir John Franklin, scratched out the old superstitions and boldly wrote across the map three words of triumph, “Here be God!” What a note of confidence and assurance! With the Lord there are no uncertainties. He is the omnisci ent, the all-knowing; the omnipotent, the all-powerful; the omnipresent, the always-present Saviour. As we look to Him for our strength, with trusting souls may we declare with the Psalm ist of old, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psa. 101 :l-2). Too many people are trying to shine for the Lord without first being willing to burn for Him. SETTING THE STANDARDS Whether we’re aware of it or not, if we claim to be Christians, there will always be those who will narrowly in spect our lives. A store keeper in a certain town had a clock displayed in his front window. Each morning a man down the block would stop to check his watch by it. Some weeks later, he went inside to report to the man that his clock in the display window wasn’t right. He explained further, “Pm the engineer at the factory down the block. I have to blow the whistle for the men to start and stop work. Pve always got ten the time by your clock just before I get to the job. Lately, everything’s been wrong because Pve blown the whistle at the wrong time. Your clock’s too slow. It’s not right. Get it fixed.” The store keeper had to laugh as he explained, ‘Sir, there’s something you should know, too. Pve always set my clock by your whistle!” You know, it’s a fact that a lot of the trouble in this old world is because too often we set our clocks, our lives, by men’s whis tles rather than by the voice of the Son of God. Looking at others, we’ll always find that even the best of them are fall ible. They will somehow, some way, disappoint us. We must look at Jesus, for He never fails.
Good things become bad when they keep you from the best.
IN, BUT NOT OF Looking back over the past months, doubtless all of us have learned some helpful lessons. A little girl was watch ing her mother work among the flowers. She hit upon an idea, and announced proudly, “Mommy, I know why the flowers grow. It’s because they want to get up out of the dirt.” That’s quite an apt definition, isn’t it? They want to get up out of the dirt! As we think of our own lives, we, as Christians, are in the world. There’s no mistaking that often it’s a very dirty place. But while we’re in it, we don’t have to be OF it. With our feet still on the ground, we are admonished to set our affections on things above and not things on the earth. After all, if we know by faith the Saviour, then we are risen with Christ. Consider this important truth for the new year. We should keep looking up, spiritually speaking, because, after all, there’s nothing but dirt under our feet. God, who is rich in mercy, has raised us up together and made us sit in heav enly places in Christ. Faith in God sees the invisible, be lieves the incredible, and receives the impossible. INFIDELITY INSURANCE We’re heartily in accord with the im portance of making provision for the future, but it seems some are going too far. Newspapers have told about insur ance brokers in Britain who have been doing a land office business in policies taken out by men who are engaged to be married. It seems some are not quite sure whether their finances will give them undying devotion of heart. So the insurance is designed to protect them against their girl friends falling in love with someone else, especially while they may be vacationing on the continent. It may sound a little ludicrous, but one broker said that 200 young men whose girl friends were going to European resorts for winter vacations this month, 29
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