In Tune with God
IN music everything depends on tune. It is so also in living. Many people are like instruments out of tune, sometimes badly out of tune. There is no sweetness in their lives. The chords of their being are jangled. The object of Christian culture is to bring our lives into perfect tune, so that they will give forth sweet music. The standard key to which all lives are to be tuned is the life of God himself. This attunement is the work of the whole life — it takes all our earthly years to come into perfect accord with the music of heaven.
Some people do not like theological terms. Such terms suggest to them abstruse doctrines which are not easily understood. One of these disliked words is “atonement.” There are wide differences of opinion concerning its
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meaning. Many ecclesiastical battles have been waged round this word. We need not linger now to discuss meanings or wage over again old controversies. Yet there is a beautiful meaning in the word in which all may agree. It means attunement — the bringing of two persons, hitherto at variance, into cordial and kindly relations. The theological meaning is the reconcihng of God and man, the bringing of them together in love and friendship — that is, the bringing of men into harmony and fellowship with God. God always loves us, but we have to learn to love him. That is what religion is intended to do in us — to lift us into harmony with God. It takes our discordant lives and brings them into tune with the holy life of Christ who was the revealing of God.
Before we can receive the blessings of the heavenly life, our hearts must be made ready, must be in tune with God himself. In wireless telegraphy, the receiver must be perfectly attuned to its transmitter, or it will not get the message. Little waves of ether are set in mo- [266]
31n um tDtti dEiotition and ripple out in all directions, as when a pebble is dropped into a quiet bay and starts wavelets which widen out and roll on till they have touched every shore. There may be a thousand stations, with their wires and electrical apparatus, but only the receivers which are in tune with the transmitter sending the message can get it.
God’s love sweeps out from his heart over all the world. It comes to the door of every life. There is not one person anywhere among all earth’s families, however far off he may be, whom God does not love. But there are many who know nothing of that love, into whose hearts the consciousness of the love never comes. The message of grace is for all, but only those whose lives are in tune with the life of God, hear it. The divine summons is, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.” In one of the psalms we read
The friendship of Jehovah is with them that fear him; And he will shoio them his covenanf*
Only those who fear God, that is, who love [267]
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him, trust him, do his will, and are in accord with him, receive the secret revealings of his friendship.
The standard of spiritual attunement is the will of God. Every note is to be keyed to that, We are to learn to say always, “Thy will be done.” In the Scriptures, good men are sometimes said to walk with God. That is, they go in God’s way, think God’s thoughts, and obey God’s commandments. “Shall two walk together, except they have agreed .f” All over the world saintly ones are walking with God all these common days. When he speaks they listen to his voice and answer. Yes. Their communion with him is never broken. The music in their hearts never ceases and is never jarred and spoiled by discords. We cannot see God with our natural eyes, but if our hearts are in tune with his Spirit, we are conscious of his presence, and its blessing flows into our lives. Our beholding him does not depend on the darkness or the light. We can see flowers and trees and human faces only in the day, when the sun is shining. We can [268]
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see the stars only at night, when the sun has gone down. But our seeing God depends on our own hearts. A little rhyme tells of a mother’s talk with her child:
* ‘It is dark, the night is come,
And the world is hushed and dumb;
Sleep, my darling, God is here! — ‘’
“Shall I see him, mother dear?”
‘* It is day, the sun is bright,
And the world is laid in light;
Wake, my darling, Qod is here I — “
Shall I see him, mother dear? “
” Not the day’s awakening light.
Babe, can shoio thee Qod aright;
Not the dark, that brings thee sleep.
Him can from my darling keep.
*’ Bay and night are his, to Jill;
We are his, to do his will;
Bo his will, and never fear;
Thou Shalt see him, baby dear.“”
Some good people have the impression that Christian joy comes only as the result of emotional experiences. No doubt there are those who are lifted up at times on the high tides of spiritual feeling. But really the only true basis for a glad life is obedience to the divine [269] commandments. Jesus lived the perfect life. His joj was never broken. There was never any interruption in his communion with his Father. And the secret of his gladness was his patient, quiet, unbroken doing of the divine will. He said of his Father, “He hath not left me alone; for I do always the things that are pleasing to him.” Then he gave his disciples the secret of a joyous life in the words, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
Could any teaching be plainer than this? We are in tune with God when we obey his words without question and when we acquiesce quietly and trustfully in his will. Disobedience always makes discord. It is so in music. When the singer or the player strikes a wrong note, the harmony is broken. It is so in life. So long as we are obedient, sweetly accepting God’s way, however it may break into our way, patiently enduring pain, or sorrow, or loss, when God wills it so, we make pleasing [270]
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music. But the moment we fail to obey some word of our Master’s, or do some evil thing, or resist some pleading of love, or rebel against some hard experience, there is discord; at once we are out of tune with God and our joy is broken.
The object of all spiritual training is to bring our lives into tune with God. Toward this we strive in all our training and discipline. We begin very far away and at the best we are only learners. Heaven always keeps above us at our best. But we are living worthily only when we are getting a little more into the heavenly spirit every day. We never can enter heaven until we have brought heaven down into our hearts. We would not be happy there if we had not learned heaven’s lessons before we go there. All the qualities of beautiful character set for us in the word of God are things that belong to the perfected life. Of a great artist one wrote:
“His face a mirror of his holy mind; His mind a temple for all lovely thi7igs to flock to And inhabit.’^
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This should be true of every good life. Evil things should be cast out, and whatsoever things are lovely should have their home in the heart.
The life that is in tune with God is keyed to the note of love. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” Any unlovingness in thought, feeling, word, or act makes discord in the music of our life. We are brought into close, intimate, and unhindered relations with God, only as we have learned the lesson of love. This includes loving relations with men as well as with God. We are besought by Saint Paul not to grieve the Spirit of God. It is a startling thought that the Holy Spirit loves us enough to be hurt by anything we may do or may fail to do. The words which follow this exhortation show us how we may thus grieve the divine heart: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you.” This is the way to get in tune with God.
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We can please God and enjoy his favor only when we love. Any failure in loving interrupts the consciousness of God’s presence. John Wesley wrote in his diary one day, “To-day I grieved the divine Spirit by speaking uncharitably of one who is not sound in the faith. Immediately I was in great darkness.” We cannot keep the peace of God in our hearts unless our human relations are as they should be. We cannot claim to be Christians unless we love others. “As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” One of the benefits of prayer is that it keeps us in tune with God. A good man was overheard saying one night at the close of his devotions, “Dear Lord Jesus, we are on the same old terms.” There was no discord in the music of his communion with Christ.
We are taught to pray always, after every request we make, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” If we do this sincerely it will always bring us into complete agreement with God. When we first begin our pleading we may be insubmissive; at least we may not be ready to accept God’s will and take up the burden of sorrow, [273]
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disappointment, or trial, laid at our feet. But as we continue to pray, “Not my will, but thine, be done,” gradually the struggle grows less intense and our mind comes more and more into the mood of quiet acquiescence, until at last all resistance has ceased and the peace of God fills our hearts.
We have a high example of this in our Lord’s own pleading in Gethsemane. When he went away alone the first time his prayer was, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” But when he went away a second time and prayed, there was a marked change in his words: “My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be done.” Instead of a strong pleading, as at first, that the cup might pass, there was now an acceptance of the fact that it would not pass and an acquiescence in the Father’s way. His will was coming into perfect acquiescence with his Father’s.
The same is true in the history of many earnest prayers. We stand face to face with a [274] gin Cime taiti (0oD
great sorrow and we fall upon our knees and plead with God to spare us the grief. We are not rebellious, but it seems to us we cannot endure it. However, as we pray with all earnestness and importunity, yet in faith, and submissively, there comes into our hearts a strange feeling of trust, which deepens into peace, until we are ready to acquiesce in God’s will without any further struggle. Our will has been brought into accord with God’s.
This is the great work of life — to come into tune with God, to grow into such trust that we shall rest in God in the silence of love, so to lose our wills in God’s that there shall never be any disharmony in our relations with God. The outcome of such a life of acquiescence is peace and joy.
“But I cannot do half those things,” said the bewildered new pupil to the teacher of physical culture, as ihc two stood together in the gymnasium. “I simply cannot do them at all.”
“If you could do them there would be little [275] mt ileisjson of Hotie
use in your coming here,” was the reply. “You are here to learn how to do them.” We say we never can bring our lives into tune with God’s. We think it will be impossible for us to learn to take God’s way in all things quietly, joyfully, sweetly. But that is just what we are here for — to be fashioned into the likeness of Christ, to learn to live in perfect peace.