SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 400, 18 February 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

" God's" iu His heaven : All's right with the world." —Browning. Jesus taught us to pray to " Our Father, which art in Heaven," We may ask where is heaven ? The word rfally explains itself, beiog connected with the verb to heave ; heaven is thus whatever is heaved up before us, or higher than ourselves. So, in calling God our Father we must always remember how infinitely above us He is in every way : "As the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts, saith the Lord," And this thought, in keeping us reverent, also gives us confidence. We all like to come in contact with some one whom wc can honestly acknowledge as superior to ourselves. We feel our characters are strengthened and refreshed in the same way as our minds are by the sight of grandly beautiful scenery, or our bodies by a breath of fresh invigorating air on a hot day. I always think David so understood this uuexpresEed need of many a heart when he said: " Load me to the rock that is higher than 1." So we come with reverence and faith, trusting God's wisdom in answering our prayers. How different the ground must look from a baloon co what it appears to us. who are ourselves on the ground. We see all things out of right proportion the nearer seems larger, though they may really be smaller ; the distant monntaiu looks small, because it is distant. But from above, from the lower heaven of the cloud, everything on the surface of the earth must look just as it is, in exactly due proportion. Even so, our vision of what we need is continually being distorted by our position iu the world. Some bodily need, it may be, presses upon us aud we feel it much, and hence suppose that it is really a great need ; when it may be really an unimportant thing for us, or even better that it should not be supplied at all. On the other hand, we may be really in sore need of some spiritual provision or deliverance, whose imoortauce hardlv appears to us at all. But " our Father which is in Heaven " sees all right. He sees what is really great as great an I whit is really little as insignificant. Therefore we may trust Him to give us just whit we need, as we seed it. This truth must not hinder our prayers. Whatever we think we need, let us ask for freely, unreservedly, unhesitatingly, never fearing God will give it us if it be wrong. Let us trust His infinite wisdom and love to translate our ignorant petitions into what is really good for us. How often we are told that Jesus went up into a mountain to pray. So we—if not bodily, yet spiritually—can avcend to higher ground, aud, seeing things in truer proportions, pray to our Father who is above all. (F).