To be near unto God - pagina 319

God the battle is no longer one between the world, but between the world and God. He who hides with God commits his cause to God. He withdraws himself from it. All his support and hope is the righteousness of his And only when this has openly been Lord. shown, he comes out from his hiding again in order to finish his course. Hiding with God therefore is no ordinary act of the soul. It onl}- takes place amid circumstances of utmost need and danger. Only when David's spirit was overhelmed within him, and he was ''My heart within me is forced to exclaim: desolate" (143:4), so that he lay "in darkness as those that have long been dead," was the cry for help forced from his heart, whereby he struck the key-note and found the word, which only in momenj:s of like stress the soldiers of the cross have echoed and re-echoed from

hides with

him and

their

own over-burdened

spirit.

also a hiding with God in moments of anxiety and need, which are occasioned by ordinary' events in life. For though as a rule believers are not called upon, like David, to fight the battle of the Lord, something of that battle annouces itself in every famih^ life, and in every individual career. The instances in worldly lives of great perturbation of mind, which lead to despair and suicide, are almost without number. And it is noteworth}'- that what brings the wordlyminded through despair to suicide, drives the believer to hide himself with God. The man of the world and the child of God both give up. But while the worldly man seeks surcease in self-destruction, just to get away from his troub-

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