“I AM READY TO HALT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27080, 14 May 1949, Page 4

“I AM READY TO HALT”

PERPLEXITY OF THE PILGRIM For the Daily Times by the Rev. Gardner Miller There is a passage in the thirtyeighth Psalm (verse 17) which most of us could have written in our private diaries this very morning. “For 1 am ready to halt and my sorrow is continually before me.” The strains of life in general and our own troubles in particular have made us not only weary in well-doing but utterly perplexed as to the outcome of it all. Christian pilgrimage to-day has no bands playing, and such spectators as there are do not cheer us, but are given to jeering. I am more than a little suspicious of those who seem to have no troubles and whose beliefs have no check.

" This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long,” is surely more of a hope than a daily reality. Those who have no doubts, no fears, no. upsets and wonderments are, to me, a breed apart, for I cannot join their company. The Christian pilgrimage to me has all along been a tremendous experience; a very mixed one, for it has taken me through dry places as well as through places ' where my spirit sang and my feet seemed to have wings. The experience has scarred me as well as shaped me. My fellow pilgrims too, and I have all along travelled with the common people, seem to have experienced the rigours as well as the sunshine of the highway through life in the same manner as myself. I don’t think it is too much to say that I have had a pavement ministry as fruitful and’as painful as a pulpit ministry. By pavement ministry 1 mean conversations on the sidewalk, the hospital ward, the prison cell, the kitchen and the office, .with men and women in all walks of life and most of them utter strangers to the churches. I have talked to them about Christ and how with Him they could face their days, and when night comes not to be afraid of the dark. At no time have I ever found fellow pilgrims who didn’t slow down and look about with troubled eyes. Often life seemed too much for them and they were frankly afraid. Could it be otherwise, for instance, with the millions of Christians whose lives have been mauled by the barbarity that has swept (and not yet ceased) through ancient Europe? Even those of us in this favoured country know what it is to be so perplexed that we have almost ceased to make progress, in the pilgrim life. Deep down we feel ready to halt. I could write much about this feeling but space must be considered. UNANSWERED PRAYER. For instance, who has not been ready to halt because of unanswered prayer! I am quite ready to admit that all honest prayer is answered sometime and somewhere. But honesty demands that we go a little further and say that months and years pass without the slightest sign that our prayer has even been heard far less answered. It’s a mighty problem that of unanswered prayer. It is not due to callousness on the part of the Almighty but no one is able to giv.e us a satisfactory answer why there is nothing but dreadful silence and suffering. We have prayed when friends have forsaken us and when enemies are busy tearing our character to pieces. We have believed that God would come to our aid. But He didn't. Apart altogether from the undoubted fact that to suffer in silence is how to follow our Lord, and also to turn the other cheek so that bofh cheeks sting with unmerited slaps is also following in His steps, it still remains a perplexity why such heartrending and soul searching prayers receive no answering signal. One of the most consoling thoughts I know about this matter of unanswered prayer is what Dr Fosdick once said about it. "If prayer is left unanswered, it is not because the reign of law prevents. It is because there are vast realms where God must not substitute our wish for His plan.” Is not that revealing? And if you will add the words “ for me ” after the word “ plan,” there will come to you a feeling that you are not after all forgotten. I do not believe there is one of us who has been mauled but will one day understand and rejoice—aye, maybe we shall rejoice that we were counted worthy fo so suffer. To be ready to halt is not to deny the divine plan; it is to be perplexed at its strange —to us—unfolding. Take a Long Look

One of the best ways to gather fresh strength to keep going on is to look at Christ often. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln that can point a moral here. When Lincoln was being carried to his burial many slaves gathered along the route to whom he had given freedom. A coloured woman held her little son high above the heads of the crowd as the funeral procession passed where she stood, and she was heard to say, Take a long look at him; he died for you.”

Aqd that is just what we all should do when we are ready to halt. Take a long look at Him. You do not need to strain your eyes into the distance; He is by your side. And then you will straighten your back. I hope to return to this subject on another occasion.