THOSE WHO HAVE LOST HEART

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 8, 2 October 1937, Page 12

THOSE WHO HAVE LOST HEART

D. Garduer

Millcr.)

(Rev,

It is not long before we realise that life is a dangerous business. We are hardly in our twenties before there begins to dawn upon us that to eat, sleep and drink, and work, by no means are the beginning and ending of our days. To some it CQ.mee gradually, tq others suddenly, that life is a matter of taking risks and cariying burdens. it is true there is the exliilaration of attempting great things, of scaling the heights of aehievement but it is also true that the real challenge of living js to hammer out a philosophy, or a principle, that will act like a guiding star in a stormy sky. The years do but acoentuato the noed of something that will keep the feet steady and the heart strong in the business of living. Happy are we if, at an early age, we drop our anchor where it grips. But it is a sorry business .when we have no anchor, for then we are at the mercy, whichi is no mercy at all, of relentless forces that are utterly indifferent to our fate. I have always found that the demands of life are never beyond our gtreugth, if we draw our strength-from Divine resonrces. But I have also fouud that, lacking thoso Divine rcsources, mauy fuil to. face up to life. '1 Uoy loso heart and then becoipe earoless. For them tliere are no stars in tho sky, and they are not at all sure that God is in the least qoneerned whether they slnk or swim. # & m It is very easy to be off-hand or, worse still, contemptuous, of those who have lost heart. To be either the one or the other is harmful. To tell the Jaint-hearted to "huck up" is useless. They want to "buck up" very mucli, but their trouble is that they cannot do so. Has it ever struck you that the great niajority of those who have lost heart, and l'or whuui life has now uo savour, are. mon and women who, at oue time, were keen and interested and zealous in good worksP What has happeued to them? 'i"Tnd that out 'and you are witliin distance of understand,ing their preseut position. Do not tell them their troublcs are imaginary. Fven if their troubles are imaginary they are, at the same time, very real to them. I never doubt people who tell ino Jk&t : niiBGry and that

they do not care whether they live or die. And wken the whole story comes out I have nothing but sympathy for them. People whp have lost heart are really ill, But it ie not a hottle frqm the chemist that will put them right. Nor will a pious talk be of any real service to them. What they need is a uew outlook. By "outlook" I mean a new understanding of the business of life, based upon a certarn great truth. And that truth is this : "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I wish I could get every man and woman who has lost heart to read the eighth chapter of llomans from verse 31 to the end of the chapter. It is exhilarating : to read it over and over again until it becomes a cliorus in your heart is to be released from your fears and to light the lamp of hope. # « =6 It is the life based on the belief that God knows, and cares, and keeps, and from Whom nothing in all the world can separate you, that rises above piur pricks and disasters, Candidly, inost people who come to me feeling,/ and looking, miserable and dejected, and who tpll me that nobody cares, have not got a real faith in God at all. Their hold on God has slipped. That, pf course, is common to us all. But it does not stop there; they have not qllowed God to keep His grip on them. Here are words — and an outlook — which 1 have given you before, and wliich I repeat to myself often and often ; f.et me no more my comfort draw From my frail hold on Thee. In tliis alone rejoice with aive, Thy mighty grasp or me. People who have lost heart are those who have allowed their hearts to be empty of God. I am not suggesting that to have a belief in God automatieally reliaves us from all care and anxiety. Belief in God does not make us immune from pain and sorrow and loss. But I shall tell you what it does > mean. It means that pain and loss and sorrow and care and anxiety, and all their connections, cannot have the last word. They may gef- us down but they cannot keep u$ down. 'Ihe mqn in whose heart God dwells cannot be ultimately defeated. At no mojnent is God nearer you than when you have lost heart. If you will turn to Him then, you will know tbe strength of the love that does not leif go. Bqt you see the point; do you not? You must at doubt God's power and you must not losen His grip on you. You will always know the power of God by using it. It hqve often told you that death does not separate you from God. Look now at verse 38: "Neither death nor life." Nothing in life can separate you from God, except yourself. If you have lost heart I bid you turn to the God Who tells you that when He is on your side you cannot lose. At any moment we can leave our whole past tn the hands of God and make a fresh start.