12/30/56

Scripture: Psalm 59: 1-10; 16,17

Text: Psalm 59: 10; “My God in his steadfast love will meet me..”

A man had decided to take employment in a different city, at some distance from the place there he had been established for some time with his family. It seemed to him the right thing to do. But its rightness was not so obvious to his little 5 year old daughter, who remonstrated: “But Daddy, why do we have to move?” She did not at first welcome the news at the dinner table, that they would be moving as soon as Daddy found a house for them in the new community. She had a good friend, her own age, just across the street. And they had good friends in the kindergarten. Her world was fairly snug and she had not desire to move away from it.

Her father was a church member and a conscientious Christian. He sought an answer that he could give to her that might be reassuring and reasonable. He did want her to feel secure, but he wanted that security to be founded in trust. He tried to explain to her that when one feels led by the good God to make a decision, and to follow a certain course, then that is the right way to move; and he felt that God had spoken to him, leading him to the decision to move to the new job in the new community. So he felt that this was what he ought to do. To which his daughter objected: “Yes, but God doesn’t talk.”

Her father paused a moment over this rebuttal, recalled a familiar Bible story that he knew they had discussed after she had heard it in Sunday School, and said, “Don’t you remember the story of Samuel and how he heard God speaking to him in the Temple?” “Yes,” said the five year old, “but that was in the old days.”

At least her skepticism was uninhibited. But it points to a feeling which many older than five year old folk possess but do not express openly. We do not usually wear our skepticism out on our sleeves where it may be so easily seen. We may be persuaded that God spoke to Moses and to Abraham and to the prophets and to Samuel in times of the biblical writings. But that was in the old days!

Is it possible that men and women may stand today at the gate of decision or on the corner of a new undertaking and hope that they may have the guiding of a personal providence in the strange way before them? We think that our understanding perceives a different universe from that in those minds of early biblical times. If their earth seemed a definite plane, perhaps “round like a cookie,” but flat between a benevolent over-arching heavenly dome and a nether region of fiery torment, our earth, round like a ball, gets smaller and smaller as we understand that it appears to be but the tiniest kind of speck in an unspeakably vast array of space and stars.

Perhaps, in our kind of universe, both men and God seem lost to each other, swallowed up in the immensity of space. Wouldn’t God be too busy, or too remote, to be concerned over any single individual? We do not wonder that William Hocking has observed that there is more “lostness” in our modern world than in any other period of history.

If we could only believe that God may be found through, and beyond, the shadows, keeping watch over all his flock of creatures day and night; that the Shepherd of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps! Do we have such a vivid sense of the presence and power of God that we can say, honestly, “I do not know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future?”

There is such assurance of divine providence in our Revised Standard translation of the 59th Psalm at the 10th verse: “My God, in his steadfast love will meet me.” Another translation reads; “will meet me at every corner.”

Let us think further, and carefully, about some of the lessons implied in this conviction. The Psalm writer confesses a personal need for divine guidance. He feels himself in immediate danger from enemies, personal and national. He may be over concerned and super sensitive. But he is assured of the steadfast love of his God, who can laugh aside the evil intent of scheming men. If this writer is representative of all men, we may believe that all people have similar needs of assurance, recognized or not. Guidance is necessary because of man’s nature and the precarious nature of his existence. The notion that was popular in our century, up to 25 or 30 years ago, that man’s life is inexorably carried forward, and upward, by an automatic progress is no part of the Psalmist’s experience. He might have agreed with the wag who said, “The world’s train of progress is not late; there has been a wreck!”

The Psalmist’s confession seems to admit that there are obvious gaps in man’s experience and his knowledge. There are spots where he has not been places which he has not seen, facts beyond his understanding, truths beyond his experience. Secrets of the world without have been yielded to him, one by one; but much of the world within him is clothed in mystery. Because of the lag in man’s moral experience he stands deeply in need of divine guidance.

A highway tragedy in a distant state takes the life of two people. They are driving at a fast clip, through the night, to visit family and friends. The car leaves the road and overturns killing both. The highway patrolman, investigating the accident, reports that no mechanical defect has been the cause, but that the skid marks show that the driver was “overdriving his lights.” At high speed he comes abruptly upon a curve which he has not seen soon enough, and he loses control over the car.

“Overdriving his lights” is one cause for the dark dilemma of man today. He may fly faster than the speed of sound, but he has lost a sense of direction. He can make his voice heard around the world, but he has so little that the world needs to hear. He may live longer, but he is not sure of the purpose and meaning of his life.

A cartoonist aptly portrays the predicament of modern man, who is so clever at penetrating the outer reaches of space, and at unlocking the mystery of the atom. Two apes are looking at the mass of rubble that had been a great city. There in the ruins of what had been skyscrapers and smaller buildings, there remain no people; there seems to be no sign of life. The caption beneath the drawing has one of the apes saying to the other; “You know, they say that these people were remarkably clever.”

Because of the subtle, and not-so-subtle, defects in man’s vision and character, he needs divine guidance. If man’s life is loose from its moorings in God, his lens is out of focus and his vantage point is off center. His compass is dangerously magnetized toward himself. And so his calculations may involve a basic error in finding his present position, and his compass needle does not afford a true reading of his direction.

Dr. Wilfrid Grenfel, intrepid medical missionary to Labrador, related how he had responded to an emergency call in the midst of a furious storm. The compass in his little boat had just been reinstalled, after a factory overhaul. Some careless workman at the factory had used a metal screw that was capable of being magnetized. And that little blunder almost cost the life of the famous missionary. It was only a kind Providence that saved him from disaster and death when his calculations went wrong from faulty reading of a magnetically-influenced compass needle.

The plight of mankind is similarly serious. He loses his way and he needs a wisdom, greater than his own, to intervene. According to the Psalm writer, this is what God does. He writes: “My God, in his steadfast love, will meet me.”

The Psalmist further implies that guidance is necessary because of the perplexing nature of man’s existence. Sooner or later there will be a blind corner around which man cannot see. His daily path may be rudely interrupted by unexpected turns. On any day, or in any hear, he is conscious that untried paths lie ahead. Yesterday’s light needs replacing by new light for today and tomorrow. Yesterday’s depleted energies must be renewed.

It may be that some vexing frustration lies ahead. Our situation may become like that of a small newsboy in a big city who had a corner where business was always brisk. One day a bigger boy chased him away and took over his corner stand. The next day the little chap was back at his usual stand, but was fearful that he might be bullied away again. He didn’t have long to wait, for the bigger boy did come again, evidently intent on taking over that corner permanently. When he appeared, the little lad jumped him, catching him by surprise. He managed to get the bully down, and at the same time began calling for help. Hearing the call: “Help! Help!” a pedestrian stopped, looked, and grinned. “Why are you calling for help, sonny? You’ve already got him down.” “Yeh,” said the smaller newsboy, “but I feel him coming up again.”

There is that sense in which, not only each new year of responsibility but every new day reappears. It faces us with the round of everyday affairs, some of which chafe and rub like the collar on a work horse’s sore shoulders. Our response reflects our attitudes and habits, and thus shapes our lives.

But even on familiar paths and streets there may be blind corners around which we can not see. We do well to pause at the edge of each day, and of each season, to acknowledge that man’s living is precarious, and that we need God’s loving presence and wise guidance.

The psalmist was worried over dark possibilities, and we may be faced with unexpected moments of anxious worry or suffering or tragedy. A person rounds the corner and finds that it leads to life without the beloved partner. A man comes around the corner and finds that there is a change in his livelihood, and he has to learn new skills by which to support life for himself and family. Reluctant parents are loathe to see their children step out from the shelter of the home to a new say. A psychologist remarks that people spend the first half of their lives afraid of life, and the second half fearing death. Why should it be so? When we find our road turning abruptly, and we hear the roar of a mighty stream rushing through the darkness, when we can not see through the darkness nor get our footing, --- cannot we believe that God, in his steadfast love will meet us at the corner? “God, in his steadfast love, will meet me.”

And of course we can be deeply thankful that there are other corners where we come upon, not sadness, but inexpressible joy, not to a scene of death but to a panorama of life. And God in his steadfast love is there, too.

[New Testament] A man has lain for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda, hoping sometime, to get into it at a time when his crippled body might be miraculously cured. Jesus comes along and says : “Do you want to get well?” Here is a new corner where the love of God meets him. “Sir, I have no man when the pool is troubled, and while I am going, another gets there first.” [John 5: 2-9]. What a picture of the distressed ones who suffer some crippling handicap of body or soul! All through life they may feel pushed aside by those who are smarter, or who get there first. How long is the list of “also-rans!” But to all of them there come unexpected corners which lead straight to the presence and fullness of God’s grace, where handicaps are mastered, or where on lives more fully in spite of hindrances.

It was so with blind Bartimaeus [Mark 10: 46-52]; it was so with Zacchaeus [Luke 19: 2-10]; it was so with Mary Magdalene. It was not so with certain others who were too blind, too unhearing, too uncommitted to get around the turn which could have led them into life.

If there are some corners to be dreaded, there are more corners to be welcomed, and some even to be sought. And God, in his steadfast love, meets us at every one of them.

In passing, let us note that the two factors which make guidance necessary are present here to make it possible. (1) Guidance is possible because of the nature of an and the nature of his existence. He is fallible and ignorant; yet he is an immortal soul. He may need to be spoon-fed with truth, but he has a capacity for rich nurture. He is an upward looking creature whose life is illumined by a light which lightens every person coming into the world. There is a chord in his which vibrates only to the voice and the will of God. Man needs guidance because he is man, but he may have it for the same reason, that he is man.

His existence also makes divine guidance possible. The world is not a meaningless orphanage, nor is it an automatic machine. There is a saving purpose which, as God’s will, affords purpose to man’s living and being. Since there is a goal to be reached, a prize to be grasped, we trust in a gracious Providence to offer guidance to people. Nothing walks with aimless feet in an ordered world. The other part of the truth is hope on a higher level. It is found in the nature and character of God, bringing assurance of His wisdom and sufficiency. Since God is related by character and covenant to Israel, and since He has a purpose for his people, the Psalm writer believes in a personal Providence, adequate for his needs.

The New Testament offers similar hope: “There is nothing in life, and there is nothing in death, which is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” [Romans 8: 38-39]. If men, in their evil and incompleteness, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more God, our Heavenly Father, will give good gifts to His own. Argue from the best of human fathers, raise all that to the heights of complete love and care beyond imagination, and one begins to sense how greatly God yearns for our highest good. He plans and cares for his own.

Is the way dark? God is light. Is the way good for this day? God preserves the happiness. Those who follow his leading may have light for life. In life, growth and progress are possible. Since God is love, we may yield ourselves in trust where we cannot yet clearly see. Whatever our way, He knows the way we take.

A man regarded as great far beyond the confines of his own town or office, William Allen White, tells in his autobiography of a very young boy from his neighborhood who was kidnapped by Indians. The name of the boy was Temple Friend. Temple’s grandfather was an itinerant missionary to the Indians. He persisted in a faith that the boy was alive - and so he was always purposefully alert to find him.

Coming to an Indian village, he would, sometime while there, line up all the Indian boys near the age that his grandson would be. Whispering in the ear of each boy, so an not to startle him, he would repeat the name of his grandson, “Temple, Temple.” Time went by, and his faith seemed hopelessly unrewarded. About eight years later, he came to a remote village seldom touched by his usual visits. There were about a dozen Indian boys of the age he sought. Gathering them together, he whispered in the ear of each, as he had done so often before, the name of his grandson, Temple.

Near the middle of the line one boy’s eyes lighted with some interest and excitement as he responded, “Me, Temple.” How had he remembered through his early 8 years of childhood? How did it happen that he recognized his name so long unheard?

At any rate, the story reveals not only the capacity of a mind to remember a heritage, but the persistent search that love makes for its own.

Because of man’s nature and the nature of his existence, but primarily because of the nature and character of God, the Psalmist may say -- and we with the Psalmist -- “My God, in his steadfast love, will meet me.” We may say it with assurance at the turning of a new corner or the opening of a new day.

The Lord of life is at the corner; indeed He is present with us even before we come to the turning, and we shall not be in want for His goodness.

------------

Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, December 30, 1956

Wisconsin Rapids, August 30, 1959