FROM THE CHURCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 5, 9 October 1950, Page 6

FROM THE CHURCH

ST. JOHN'S METHODIST

“Most of us hold some belief in God’s guidance of our individual lives,” said the Rev. Wm. C. Jenkin, speaking in the St. John’s Methodist Church, last night.

We ought not to think that God is not great enough to have a care for the individual, nor ought we to think that the individual is too insignificant to receive guidance, or incapable of being guided. From time to time various devices have been used to learn the Will of God. There is undoubtedly truth in the contention that our praying is often too one-sided. . We all know how easy it is for all of us to justify intellectually what we really want to do and how easy it is for our dominant desires to emerge in contemplation as revelations of the Will of God.

There is perhaps no story that illustrates this danger more vividly than the story of Balaam (Numbers chapt 22). The story is very old, yet amazingly modern, and not without its touches of humour. There are three main features of the story which are important. 1. The emergence of the selfish desire. At oui' best we want to do the Will of God, but there is something very subtle in the way in which selfish desire for pleasure, for comfort, for gain, for power, leads us astray. Persuading ourselves that we are doing the Will of God, we really do what our selfishness advises.

2. The narrowing path. When we pursue a course of action we become more and more implicated and involved in the development of our action so that it becomes more and more impossible to turn back from it. Balaam has to learn, however, that it is hot easy to turn back. 3. The way to- make good. Balaam could not go back, but he could make good. He must go on to do only that which is revealed to him to the Will of God against his own self-interest.- We may not be able to undo the‘consequences of our actions, but we can repent of them and we can give ourselves in dedication of life to do the Will of God.

Possibly, we too, would like to go back to the beginning, as Balaam wanted to do; but we must go forward and the word of us is the same as for Balaam: ‘Only the thing that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt do.’