“I, TO THE HILLS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24817, 17 January 1942, Page 3

“I, TO THE HILLS”

Written for the Otago Daily Times By the Rev, Gardner Miller e I am, sitting at a window overlooking Otago Harbour. It is a perfect morning, the storm of yesterday having spent itself and left behind an atmosphere of such clarity that I can count the trucks of a train puffing along on the other side. Away to my left and across the harbour, Dunedin lies sprawling like a sun bather. The water of the harbour is sparkling, the sun and light breeze making it look like a mass of diamonds. But the crown of all this beauty are the hills. Before me and around me they show their sides, wooded and green, while their crests break the sky-line in a glorious disorder that makes a perfect picture. I love to watch the growing and moving shadows that creep up and over the hills, making patterns that shift and change as the sun makes his daily round. lam not a hill climber, though I am a hill lover. I can understand the exhilaration of those who love to conquer heights, while I know that* the low lands must ever be my physical limits. There is something about hills that satisfy and yet at the same time create a longing to know what lies beyond the highest point. As a youngster, when physical limits were not even thought of, I was always keen to scramble over the hills to see what lay beyond. I generally found that what I thought was the topmost peak was really lower than the one beyond, which drew me on and on until I got to a point where I could go on no farther. Life is like that. There’s no final peak. Ever the struggle and the strain, but who will say that the effort is useless! We are never satisfied, for God has so made us that our questing spirits yearn for the unattainable. That does not imply that we cannot be happy here; not at all. But it does imply that earthly happiness is never it is a stage on a journey. So the hills around lovely Otago Harbour have quickened my memories and stirred slumbering thoughts. Being what I am, I could not look at the hills without the words of the Psalmist leaping into the front of my mind, “I, to the hills will lift mine eyes.” How that old psalm lives! With the twenty-third it has marched through the centuries, the comfort and solace of mankind. Many think that what the psalmist reminds us of is that the hills are a standing reminder of safety and security. But it is not so.

Behind the Hills What he actually tells us is that the hills strong and unmovable though they seem, are no guarantee of safety and security. You will see his meaning if you will put a question mark at the end of the second line; “ From whence doth come mine aid ”? The third line is the answer, “My safety cometh from the Lord, Who heaven and earth hath made.” It is the Lord Who is behind the hills and who made the hills, Who is the safety and security of men and women. Hills and mountains are not stationary. They are always moving and shifting and changing. The process is very slow, but it is none the less constant. They are in the grip of a superior power, a power to Wnom they can offer no protest and which they certainly cannot stop. So David bids us lift our eyes beyond the shifting hills, that seem so steadfast and unmovable, to the Lord, to Whom the hills are a very little thing. And if you look at the. forty-sixth Psalm you will see how he is plucking the same string on his harp. “Though hills amidst the seas be cast . . . even though the earth remove ... we will not be afraid.” Why? Because “ God is our refuge and our strength.” I confess this old singer gives me more hope than all the moderns. With sure touch and insight he reminds us that our spirits must wing their way, over hill and dale, to Him Who is our home. Behind the hills there is God. Behind what seems final there is a new beginning. I wish every one of us in these days, when every day brings its load of tragedy to our front door, could allow ourselves to be gripped by the belief that God is over all. I don’t mean to suggest that He is responsible for what is happening to-day. He isn’t; but I do believe that there is a limit beyond which evil and tragedy cannot go. The last word is not with force out of control; it is with God, Whose will must ultimately, by men and women, be chosen to reign supreme. The hills remind me that God cannot be shut out of life. Many years ago a famous lecturer took his magic lantern to the East End of London to show a crowd of children something of the wonders of Nature. He told them about the beginnings of life and then said, sadly, “ How life began, we don’t know. We come to a closed door.” From the dark hall there came a boy’s voice, “ Mister, doesn’t God live behind the door”? The boy’s question is the answer to the riddle of the universe. Behind the door God lives, and He opens the door and steps over the threshold into human affairs. Is there any other explanation of the coming of Jesus Christ? Behind the hills God lives and through the thousand avenues of Nature He pours out blessings for men. A Present Aid God is never far away from any human heart. We cannot see Him, but we can be “ aware ” of Him, That’s what Jesus meant when He said that the pure in heart shall “ see ” God. We “ see ” Him, not with the eyes of sense, but with the eyes of our spirit. We become “ aware ” of Him by the quickening of our memories, our emotions, and by the “ feeling ” that we are being led. Let not the word “ pure ” keep you from realising the presence of God. ■ Jesus is not asking, or expecting, any of us to be pure, in the sense of being sinless, before we can " see ” God. If that were so all of us would go through life without ever realising i the presence of God. No, not pure in the sense of being sinless, but pure in the sense of eagerness to live the good life. Jesus does not ask the impossible of any of us, but He urges us to strain after the highest. Towards the heights, towards the hills. He seems to say, and when you reach the peak you see. Let it be an incentive to go on and on to the next and the next. As you climb—even though your life is a pavement life—you will know that God is near.