Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 131, 18 July 1941, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Whakat THE UNSETTLEMENTS OF LIFE — — ■ ■ — . ■ By tiio Row James Reid, D.D. "As an eagle si irrcth up her nest . • . so the Lord did lead him."' — Deut. xXxii. 11, 12.

It is part of the work of religion to interpret for us the experience of life. "God is light," says St. John, and the function of light is to enable us to understand and to see our way. It is" an axiom of faith that the only way to interpret what happens to us in life is lo see it in the light of God's purpose and His. love. It was not easy for the Israelites to take a large view and see what had been behind the movement that had brought them out of Egypt. II had uprooted their lives to the very foundations. In Egypt they had been safe and sheltered, in a sense. The sun was warm; the skies were blue. In the desert they had met with hunger and thirst and: peril and loneliness. Why had they ieff Egypt? They asked themselves tha* auestion when things got too much for them. What was the nature OK that strange urge in their souls, that j ,r »nging for freedom which their leader had kindled into a flame ? What had God been doing with them? For answer, Ivloses drew the pic e ure of the eaa'le stirring up he* nest and scattering her young. The.v had all seen that apparent cruelty taking place on the rocky crags of Horeb. They did not need to be told what it meant. In the nest the eaglets. would never have grown up. Fhey would never have learned to use their wings. They would havc> missed their true element —the air that could stimulate flight and enable them to soar into the heavens. That was exactly what God had been doing with them through thi u unsettlement of their life. He hflri fung them out of the nest. He had fed them into the void, as it seemed, with nothing to support them. But rr " knew what He was doing. There were capacities that would never havei developed iri Elgypt. Independence, resourcefulnessi, the power to use their own minds—all thesie were to their true life. Above all, in E'gypt they would never have learned to seek God's will, to follow His; guiding, to know His fellowship, to trust His care. They would never have become a nation which he could use for His great purpose of revealing Himself to men. Every parent who has half the wisdom and the lovei of the motheruses this method with his children. He makes them face things for themselves. He trains them to stand up to their own difficulties, to use their own minds, to solve j their own problems. The worst'

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

ine Ministers' Association). thing a parent can do for this child s to ko-p him or her dependent, afraid of life, unequal to its d"- N ■viands. A scientist who investigated the nervous condition of children from various: sections of society made a strange discovery. He found that the children who were mu.cn left to themselves, and exposed t«-> Mic hazards of the streets were often ( >ee f' - om these nervous fears. On tlie other hand, those who were brought tip in more sheltered homos often showed fear of life and were unable to cope with difficulties. Life is full of unsettlements. At the best, things do not always go smoothly. Sometimes there are shattering things that shake us to the roots. For most of us; there, never was a time of such unsettlement ns to-day. But it has Something to fin for us. It forces.us to think. Tt calls for capacities that perhaps w 7 e have not been using. These last weeks have stimulated a courage, a resourcefulness, a self-sacrifice in many people that no one would have given them credit fo>~, and that has perhaps surprised themselves. The stern process that stirred the nest need not have come in this wav,But now that it has come, let us understand it and see what it may do for us. For nothing happens to us which God cannot use.

There arc one or two things that we should hold on to. The first is that in this lonely, untried Avorld. where many familiar things are gone, there is nothing to fear. It can he very terrifying. To he bombed out of home', to lose one's husiiiess, to be scattered among strangers —that is the lot of many. It is not pleasant. It cannot, however, be more terrifying than the empty is to the eaglet when he is flung into it. He does not realisie till the rush of the wind meets him how it can stimulate liim, and how. there is something in it that can bear him up and make him feel his wings. So it is with life, even when it seems most fearful. The other thing to realise is that this is God's world, however cold and harsh may be its* circumstances. God. Himself dwells in it. I't is the sphere in which He 1 lives 1 and moves among His children. Jesus taught lis that He was at home in it, in loneliness, poverty, danger. He came that He might be with us in >t and make us realise that God is with us in it. But God, like the mother eagle, will do something more. She does not leave the eaglets to sink ox swim. "She fluttereth over her young she beareth them on her wings" when they grow weary and afraid. God knows 1 there are limits to om strength. He is near, when life becomes too much for us, to hold as up and give us rest and confidence in <he strong arms of His love. Life is never a bottomless abyss. "Undern.rnih are the everlasting arms."