T f et me share with you a brief paragraph from a letter that came recently from a woman in -Southern California. She says, “My husband is "getting rather fed up with church.” (Now the church in mind here is a very prominent evan gelical church in their city.) “He is from a very strong Christian family, and was a strong Christian himself. But now he says to get ahead in the world and make the kind of money he wants to make, you can’t be a full-time Christian because you either give up all you’ve got to follow Christ’s claims, or you’re not worthy. Since he’s not worthy, why go half-way? I can’t make him see otherwise.” Now, that’s a tragedy. There’s a modern prodigal son who has chosen to go out from the Father’s house seeking the things he wants, and he doesn’t realize that what he really wants is to be found only in the Father’s house. And he’s going to have to learn by going down into the pigpen, or by drinking of the empty, unsatisfying cisterns of this world; how bar ren and meager such an affair is. He’s going to have to learn the hard way, and this is the tragedy he must face. This man is choosing a dead-end street today, and when he gets to the end of it, there’ll be nothing to do but to turn around and come back. But though we pity his choice, let me say I admire his honesty. This young man at least has seen that the Christian life is insipid and tasteless if it’s only lived half-way. Here’s an example right here in black and white, and others like it are taking place all around us today. Let me bring you another quote from another source that I think says it much better than I. Here’s a young man who writes very penetratingly about this problem, and this is what he says: “ To sum up, the Christian’s vocation is to he in the world, but not of it; to represent Christ in it and to intercede on its behalf because it’s under judgment (this is the Christian’s priesthood), to identify him self with its sufferings but not with its attitudes; to bring his influence to bear upon the world’s life with out being corrupted by the world’s ways; to stand on the frontier, holding forth the Word of Life, and so to love and obey that Word that he’s delivered from the evil one and sanctified in the truth. Such a calling involves a cross. The man who separates himself from the world and seeks to escape it does not know that cross. The man who submits to the world’s pressure and loses his distinctiveness as a Christian does not know that cross. The man who seeks to be in the world, as our Lord was in it, but shows that he is not of it because he’s a Christian and in Christ, that man will find his cross. It’s only the disciple who follows Christ in both these respects who has a cross to take up.”
But that’s the thing that makes it gripping, vital, interesting, challenging, stimulating. It’s this danger! The Lord wants us to live on a frontier where we’re constantly under danger, and we’ll be safe just as long as we’re loyal to the Shepherd and never begin to think or act like a wolf. When we do that, we’re really in trouble. But as long as we think and act like a sheep, we’re safe among the wolves. Well, you say, isn’t this difficult? Doesn’t it present a lot of problems? Aren’t you constantly having to make adjustments and make decisions? Of course you are! Whoever said the Christian life was easy? That’s been the trouble with it. We’ve made it so easy that we have no problems any longer, and so we have no power. Now we’re to have problems. Our Lord wants us to have problems. He wants us to be constantly won dering what to do about this particular situation and thinking it through and testing it according to the Word and praying about it and finding the answer that satisfies and that works. He wants us to live that way. That’s what makes it challenging and interest ing, and without it life becomes dull and meaningless.
W n M own
Windblown, against the hills, I saw them stand: Gaunt trees, bereft along the windward side, Yet full and rounded on the other hand, Stretching abundant branches far and wide. The very force that swept the one side clean O f leaf and bough upon some gusty day, Had only caused the wise old trees to lean And grow more lovely in another way. And though the winds of human circumstance Should strip this life o f every earthly whim, Whatever be the toll of time or chance The heart that has been given unto Him Leans to His heart, and finds this sweet reward — A growth into the fulness o f the Lord. — Helen Frazee-Bower
CO N T IN U E D 29
NOVEMBER 1956
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