God’s Self-Expression And The Mind Of To-Day 1

To the mind of to-day, trust would be easier were it not for the terror lest God’s plans that involve us in fearful things from which we shrink. We have heard so much of the trials He sends; of the gifts of Tantalus, He keeps forever in our sight but just beyond our reach; of the blessings, He actually bestows upon us only to snatch them away when we have come to love them most—we have heard so much of this that we are often afraid of His will as the greatest among the evils of which we stand in dread.

In many cases, this is the root of our fear. We cannot trust without misgiving to the love of God. What is there then that we can trust to? We can’t trust to ourselves; still less can we trust to our fellowmen. Those whom we love and in whom we have confidence being as weak as ourselves, if not weaker than we, establish our spirits not at all. If, therefore, we mentally poison the well of Universal Good-intent at its very source what have we to depend on?

I have already referred to the God of repressions and denials, and now must speak a little more freely of this travesty on “the Father,” as expressed to us in Jesus Christ. Of all the obstacles to the rooting out of fear, the lingering belief in such a distortion of Divine Love is to my mind the most deeply based.

I often think it a proof of the vital truth in the message of Jesus Christ that it persists in holding the heart in spite of the ugly thing which, from so many points of view, the Caucasian has managed to make of it. Nowhere is the cruelty of Caucasian misinterpretation more evident than in the meanings given to the glorious phrase, “the Will of God.” I do not exaggerate when I say that in most Caucasian minds, the Will of God is a bitter, ruthless force, to which we can only drug ourselves into submission. It is always ready to thwart us, to stab us in the back, or to strike us where our affections are tenderest. We hold our blessings only on the tenure of its caprice. Our pleasures are but the stolen moments we can snatch from its inattention.

As an example, I quote some stanzas from a hymn frequently sung where English-speaking people worship, and more or less expressive of the whole Caucasian attitude toward “God’s Will.”

My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home, on life’s rough way,
O teach me from my heart to say,
“Thy will be done!”

Though dark my path, and sad my lot,
Let me be still and murmur not,
Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
“Thy will be done!”

What though in lonely grief I sigh
For friends beloved, no longer nigh,
Submissive still would I reply,
“Thy will be done!”

If Thou shouldst call me to resign
What most I prize, it ne’er was mine:
I only yield Thee what is Thine;
“Thy will be done!”

These lines, typical of a whole class of sentimental hymnology, are important only in as far as they are widely known and express a more or less standardized point of view. The implication they contain is that all deprivation is brought upon us by the Will of God, and that our wisest course is to beat ourselves down before that which we cannot modify. Beneath the car of this Juggernaut, we must flout our judgments and crush our affections. As He knows so well, where to hit us, we must stifle our moans when He does so. As He knows so well, what will ring our hearts we must be content to let Him give so that He can more poignantly take away. The highest exercise of our own free will is to “be still and murmur not”—to admit that we need the chastisement—to crouch beneath the blows which we tell ourselves are delivered in love, even though it is hard to see where the love comes in.

TO BE CONTINUED….

PHOTO CREDIT : CAROLINA