In the Hands of God

u It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” — Heb. x. 31.

Yea, but it is a more fearful thing still not to fall into His hands. To fall into His hands must be pain, for the passage from death into life is ever painful. The first sensation of an infant is pain, just because life has come and is in struggle with the old elements of death.

There is a fear in all life which does not exist in lifelessness, for the sense of life is in its nature an awful thing. But wouldst thou, therefore, rather be without itl wouldst thou, therefore, rather be a clod of the valley? Nay, for the very awfulness of the possession is itself thy glory. So is it with thy spiritual life. When it conies to thee it comes with a great sense of pain. It wakens thee up to the fearfulness, to the awfulness, of being a responsible soul. It tells thee that thou art in the presence of a law which thou hast violated, that thou art in the midst of an universe with which thou art not in unison. It quickens thee into the knowledge that there is impurity within thyself, and causes thee to cry out, “0 wretched man that I am!” It is only when the pure life comes that the impure life is revealed. It is only when the pure life comes that the impure life begins to struggle. The struggle of thy soul is the fruit of thy new birth. The old life was a stagnant pool; the new is a waving sea. Its waves are its glory, its storms are the signs of its higher destiny.

0 God, Thou living God, let me fall into Thy hands; it is only in Thy hands that I can be perfectly safe. I know that to fall into Thy hands is indeed a fearful thing; I know that it is the beginning of all my fears, for it is the beginning of all my responsibilities. In Thy hands I shall learn the awfulness of my spiritual being, in Thy hands I shall learn how little it has fulfilled its destiny. Nevertheless, it is in Thy hands alone that I would be; the fear that comes from contact with Thee is indeed the beginning of wisdom. There would be no penalty to me so great as to fall out of Thy hands; to be out of Thy hands is to be dead. There is a pain with Thee, which is not found without Thee, but it is the pain of love which is the pain of the life Divine. Translate me into that life. Lift me into union with Thine own Divine being. Raise me into fellowship with that power of Thy love which is the power of Thy suffering. Take me into Thy hands and hold me in Thy fear. Let me learn in Thy life how solemn is my own, let me see in Thy glory how poor is my own. I will not shrink from the fear of beholding in a glass the image of my moral deformity, if only I know that the glass wherein I behold it has been fashioned by the hands of the living God.