Any spring day may serve to illustrate this faith. Where does the
restlessness in nature have its source? Every tree, in discontent,
hastens to make buds into leaves, and every blade of grass is
tremulous with impatient life. No tree, however, is a sufficient
explanation of its own haste and dissatisfaction; no flower has in
itself the secrets of its eager growth. The spirit of life is abroad,
and crowding itself everywhere on old, dead forms, is making them
bloom again. Explain then, the moral restlessness of our hearts in
other wise! We do ill, and are distraught with remorse until we repent
and make reparation. We attain money or talents, and are chased day
and night by the urgent call to their spiritual dedication. We conform
ourselves to decency and still hear a call for goodness beyond all
earthly need. We succeed as the world calls it, and we know that it is
failure; we fail as the world sees it, and our hearts sing for joy
because we know that we have succeeded. Everywhere we are confronted
with a pulsing life that longs to get itself expressed in us. We
cannot get away from God. He is not far, he is here. This Spirit, for
whom there is no better name than the Spirit of Jesus, is our
continual companion. We are locked in an enforced fellowship with him.
There is no friend with whom we deal more directly and continually
than with him. Every time we open an inspiring book and devoutly study
it, this Spirit is pleading for entrance. Every time we pray he stands
at the door and knocks. Every time some child in need, or some great
cause demanding sacrifice, lays claim on us, this Spirit is crying to
be let in. Men's hunger for food, their love for family and friends,
are not more direct, concrete, immediate experiences than our dealings
with this Spirit of the Lord. He is not only God the Father; he is
God the Spirit, striving to dwell in us and work through us.
Into a vital use of this relationship with the Divine, Christ opened
the way and multitudes have followed. He has taught men to find that
same resourcefulness in the spiritual world which science finds in the
physical. Every successful invention of a man like Edison involves a
twofold faith: that there is inexhaustible power in the universe and
that, with persistent patience and cooperation, there is no telling
what marvels yet may come from the employment of it. Faith is
science's flying column. It runs out into engineering, agriculture,
medicine, and refuses to limit the possibilities. Science is a
tremendous believer; it lives by faith that almost anything may yet be
done. Such a relationship Paul sustained with the Spirit. He was
confident of resources there, "exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think" (Eph. 3:20). He was a spiritual Edison, a believer in
the divine reality and power and their availability by faith in human
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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