To be near unto God - pagina 112

from wandering to wandering away. And then everything became uncertain, restless and comfortless. Influences from beneath repressed holy influences from above. God seemed far removed from him. The tie of faith in Christ which was once so firmly strung, was weak. It was dark for the soul and in this darkness the heart began to feel lonely and forsaken, till it could endure it no longer and longed after God again and tried to seek him back. But seeking was not followed by finding. No signs marked off the path. Going this way and now that the soul remained equally far removed from God, or wandered at length still farther away from him. When once we have been enriched with the love of God it is not given us to play with it; first to win it, then to let it go, and then to take it back again at pleasure. He who has known the Lord and afterward has forsaken him does not of himself find him again. And so we learn to know our lack of saving power. We can not save ourselves. But we retain the deep consciousness that we can not do without God; that the want of his love creates an aching void in the heart, until finally it becomes a matter of conviction: I can not seek God back, but God can seek me again. And then follows the anxious bleating of the wandering sheep. A call from the depth of the soul upon God whom he has lost, the prayer, the supplication: O God, seek thy servant.

This longing desire to find God back takes a wonderful hold sometimes upon the human heart. There are those whom God allowed, while they were yet children, and thus but partly known to 108

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