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WHEN in holy ecstasy the Psalmist sings:
"I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my
supplication," he pours out his whole soul in this song, but no one
can analyze that love. To have love for God is something altogether
different and something far weaker than to be able to say: "I love
God."
You have love for your native land, you have love for the beauty and
grandeur of nature, you have love for the creations of art, from the sense
of compassion you have love for suffering humanity, you are conscious of
love for what is noble, true and of good report, and thus in all honesty
almost every man can say that he also has love for God, and that his love
for God even exceeds all other loves, since all good that inspires love is
from God, and God Himself is the highest good. And yet while this love for
God can be a lofty sentiment, can be deeply serious, and can even be able
to ignite a spark of enthusiasm, the soul may have no fellowship with the
Eternal, and have no knowledge of the secret walk with God; the great God
may not have become his God, and the soul may never have exclaimed in
passionate delight: "I love God!"
Love for God, taken in general, is still largely love for the idea of God,
love for the Fountain of Life, for the Source of all good, for the Watcher
of Israel Who never slumbers, for the One Who, whatever changes, eternally
abides. But when there echoes in the soul the words "I love
God!" then the idea, the sense and the reality of the Eternal Being
becomes personified. Then God becomes a Shepherd Who leads us, a
Father Who spiritually begat us, a Covenant-God with Whom we are in
league, a Friend Who offers us His friendship, a Lord in Whose service we
stand, the God of our confidence, Who is no longer merely God but our God.
Thus for many years you may have had a general love for God and yet have
never come to know God. This knowledge of God only comes when love for Him
begins to take on a personal character; when on the pathway of life for
the first time you have met Him; when the Lord has become a Personal
Presence by the side of your own self; when God and you have entered into
a conscious, vital, personal, particular relationship - He your Father,
you His child.
Not merely one of His children, no, but His child in an individual way, in
a personal relation different from that of the other children of God, the
most intimate fellowship conceivable in heaven and on earth - He your
Father, your Shepherd, your bosom Friend and your God!
He who has not come to this, does not understand this. It goes too deep
for him. And yet if he is religiously inclined, when he hears others talk
about it, he senses that if he could attain unto such a love, his own love
would be more tender than now he feels it to be.
This tells him that as yet he misses something. It may awaken in him a
longing for it; a craving in him for that which would be so beautiful to
possess.
And this craving can prepare the way for higher things. For when it comes
to a meeting with God, the action proceeds from both sides. God comes to
him, and he comes to God. First from afar, then ever closer, until at
length all distance falls away, and the meeting takes place - a moment of
such blessedness as can never be expressed in words.
Then and only then comes the "nearness." For everything hinges
on that nearness, on that feeling, "it is good for me to be near unto
God."
He also who has not entered into this secret, may say with others,
"it is good for me to be near unto God" (Ps. 73: 27), but as yet
he does not grasp it. He says it without thought. He thinks it means a
pious frame of mind, but feels no slightest burning of a spark of this
mystical, most intimate and personal love in his own heart. Adoration,
worship, prayer for grace are there, but no attachment yet of love. To be
"near" is to be so close to God that your eye sees, your heart
is aware of, and your ear hears him, and every cause of separation has
been removed; near in one of two ways: either that you feel yourself, as
it were, drawn up into heaven, or that God has come down from heaven to
you, and seeks you out in your loneliness, in that which constitutes your
particular cross, or in the joy that falls to your lot.
That word "near" implies that there is, Oh! so much that makes
separation between you and your God; so much that makes you stand alone,
feel desolate and forsaken, because either God is away from you or you are
away from Him, so that it leaves you no rest, and you can not endure it.
Then everything within you draws you to Him again, until that which made
separation falls away. And then there follows the meeting; then He is near
you, and you know once more that you are near Him.
Then there is blessedness again; blessedness that exceeds everything that
can be imagined. Then it is good, Oh! so, good - above all things else -
to be near again to your God.
But this blessedness may be tasted only at rare moments in this life.
And then there remains the blessedness in the life that is eternal, when
that nearness to your God shall continue forever. Eternally near Him in
the Fatherhouse.
Cruel is the way in which the world thwarts you in this. To escape from
the world in hermitage or cell was not the solution, but you can
understand what went on in the souls of those who, for the sake of
unbroken fellowship with God, took this course.
It might have been the solution, if those who went out from the world had
been able to leave the world behind. But we carry the world in our heart.
It goes with us, because no hermitage is so well fortified, and no retreat
in forests so distant, but Satan finds means to reach it.
Moreover, to shut oneself out from the world in order to be near unto God,
is to claim for oneself here on earth what can only be our portion in the
Fatherhouse. It is true that in seclusion one escapes a great deal. Much
vanity the eye no longer sees. But existence becomes abnormal. Life
becomes narrow. The "human" is reduced to small dimensions.
There is no task; no more calling; no more exertion of all one's powers.
The conflict is avoided, and therefore victory in the struggle tarries.
Nearness unto God here on earth yields its sweetest blessedness when it is
cultivated in the face of sin and the world, as an oasis in the wilderness
of life. And they against whom the world has turned most cruelly in order
to turn them away from God, have attained the highest and the best, when
in spite of every obstacle, and in the face of worldly opposition they
have continued to hold tryst with God - like Jacoh at Penuel, Moses in
Mount Horeb, David when Shimei cursed him, and Paul when the people rose
in uproar against him.
In the midst of the conflict to be near unto God is blessed, and also
apart from the conflict with the world, or sin, or Satan, when clouds
gather over your head, when adversity, loss and grief inflict wound upon
wound in your heart, when the fig tree does not blossom, and the vine will
yield no fruit, then with Habakkuk to rejoice in God, because His blessed
nearness is enjoyed more in sorrow than in gladness, this has been the
lesson of history in all times. Not when in luxury and plenty David
pleased himself, but when Saul persecuted him unto the death, did he sing
his sweetest song for God. Yet the world continues to be cruel. Its
cruelty may assume an ever finer form, but in its refinement it becomes
ever more painful. In former times there were many things that reminded
people of the sanctities of life, which of themselves provoked thought of
higher interests and called eternity to mind. All this is different now.
In common life there is almost nothing that helps to retain the memory in
the soul of the high, the holy and the eternal. In public life, every
reflection of heaven is extinguished. No more days of fasting and prayer
are appointed. No one may speak any more of God. No memento
now reminds you of your death. Cemeteries are turned into parks. Sacred
things are held up to ridicule. In conversation and in writing the
dominant note is that heaven reaches no farther than the stars, that death
ends all, and that life without God thrives as well, if not better, than
life in the fear of the Lord. And this discounting of God in public life
throws itself as a stream between your God and your God-fearing
heart. Your faith is strained in the measure in which you try,
against the current of this stream, to hold yourself fast by God.
Especially to our young people, and to our dear children, this modern
cruelty of the world is unspeakably dangerous. But be of good courage.
God knows it, and in His eternal
compassion He will come nearer, closer, and more quickly to you, and to
your dear ones, in order that even amidst these trying conditions of
modern life you and they may be near unto Him. But then there must be no
peace by compromise, or more than ever will a vague love for a far distant
God desert you. That which alone can save is taking part in that life of
secret fellowship, which enables you to say "I love God," and
then you will not remain standing afar off, but press on to ever closer
nearness to God, in the personal meeting of your soul with the Eternal. Abraham Kuyper
* * *
"Draw nigh
to God, and he will draw nigh to you."
James 4:8
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