To be near unto God - pagina 586

highness and your glory? And is it no violation of yourself and of your God when you discard this holy urgency of love, and play with it, and for the sake of religious recreation spasmodically return to it, only to withdraw yourself presently from it again, that in your innermost soul you may engage yourself with all sorts of things except

God? The wound which

this inflicts upon his holy love would not be so grievous if God could forget you for a time, even as you forsake him. But God can not do this. Before there is yet a word in your lips, behold, he knows it altogether. As God himself declares: "I know the things that

come

into your mind, every one of them."

Thus, does he know every one of the things that ought, but do not come into it. He knows and mourns every moment that you do not think of him, that you are not engaged with him, that you do not seek him, do not desire his nearness, and shamefully live apart from his And when in spite of all this you secret walk. still sing with the multitude: "But it is good for me to be near unto God!" is there then not something of a provocation on your part which

also, let us repeat it:

offends

And

and which

is

bound

to

wound God?

this is the reverse of what it is to desire to be near unto God, confess, does there not spring from this an entirely unthought of new impulse to make your seeking after God's nearness an ever deeper reality in your life? As long as you view nearness unto God from your side alone, you can comfort yourself for any temporal loss of it by considering the compensating, unspeakable riches of the single moments of its if

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