MAN'S EXTREMITY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 55, 20 March 1937, Page 12

MAN'S EXTREMITY

Ifc has been well said that "man's extremity is God's opportunity." Most of us have had experience of this in the ordinary things of life. There Was some emergency of which we were afraid. We had done all we could to meet it, and we could do no mor©. Then we gave up worrying and trusted God, and somehow in a wonderful way we got through. Or there was someone who was making trouble for himself or others. We had toried in vain to help him. Then we gave up fretting and put the situation into God's hands and somehow a new light seemed to break in his mind, and the whole situation was changed. Of course God has larger plans afoot than our convenience or our immediate success. It is these plans we must keep in mind and for these we must seek. But often when we seek them and are ready to yield our wjlls to take His way, the very things about which we were troubled find their solution. When we can do no more, it is good to remember that God is not defeated. Our very helplessness is a call to stand still and see His salvation. . We need this counsel very specially in these days. The air is full of ideas that seem to portend the defeat of the Ghristian faithi. In our own land and abroad, there are movements that make us anxious. It is a call to bestir ourselves and take fresh hold of the unfihakable convictions that Christ has sown in our hearts. It may be these threatening forces are like some diseases. They are signs of defective vitality. They are symptoms of needs which our Chiristianity has not been vital enough to meet. They are God's call to us to set the house of our own faith in otder. But they are more. They are a call also to trust God, and not to let ourselves be caught in any panic of feat or despair. God's purpose will not fail, though it may be baffled for the moment. He has His plans, and jn His own way He will Bee them through. When we have done and are doing all we can, His call is to the confidence that waits and trusts. It is to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And most of all, perhaps, we need this word in the places of our own despair about ourselves. Salvation is of God and only of God. We cannot save ourselves from the grip of sin or the miasma of doubt. There may be something in our own life which constantly defeats us. Or there may be some haunting doubt that fills the heart with gloom, and shuts out the light. Or there may be some burden from the past which will not lift from the conscience. In vain we struggle and torment our minds with thinking. We but beat our feeble hands against an iron door. There is one way through into the light. It is just to trust God quietly and simply, and let His Spirit work. Forgiveness is a gift which we have only to trust Him to make ours. The light that scatters doubt comes into the soul when we lay aside the teasing problem and simply trust Him. As we come into the quietness that leaves Him to work, the light will break and the power will Come. The iron door will open and let Us through into tlie living re«ality of His peace and victory.