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The Book of Courage, a non-fiction book by John T. Faris |
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Chapter 8. God The Source Of Courage - 6. Out Of The Depths |
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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. GOD THE SOURCE OF COURAGE VI. OUT OF THE DEPTHS During the year 1538 an Italian spent long weeks in a noisome underground prison cell, where he was kept on account of religious differences. For a precious hour and a half of each day, when the light struggled in through a tiny window, he read the Bible, especially the Psalms. Among the Psalms that meant most to him was the one hundred and thirtieth, whose beginning "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord," expressed the longings of his heart for companionship and comfort. Exactly two hundred years later, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley, then in the midst of the greatest anxiety and longing for God, heard the choir at St. Paul's Cathedral sing, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." The words brought joy to him. From the depths in which he found himself that afternoon he cried unto God, and that evening there came to him the knowledge of God's presence that gave him strength to begin the wonderful work that built up the great Methodist Church. These same words meant much to Josiah Royce, the American teacher of philosophy, who died in 1916. In one of his later books, he wrote: "We come to such deep places that we can only cry. We are astonished that we can cry. And then we become aware that our cry is heard. And he who hears is God. And so God is often defined for the plain man as 'He who hears man's cry from the depths.'" One who knew Professor Royce well wondered if he did not enter the depths from which he cried to God and received such satisfying response, after the death of his only son. In the same way those who delight in the message of Psalm 130 wonder what could have been the experience of depression that opened the way for his reception of God's blessing. We can only speculate about these things. But there is one thing of which we can be absolutely sure: there is no depth so low that the cry of one of God's children will not reach from it to the heart of the Father; no sorrow so crushing, no anxiety so overwhelming, no pain so intense, no difficulty seemingly so unsolvable, no sin so awful, that eager, earnest prayer will not bring God to the relief of the sufferer. "If out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths," one has said who has written of the words that Professor Royce found so helpful. Then he asks: "What can a man do who finds himself at the foot of a beetling cliff, the sea in front, the wall of rock at his back, without foothold for a mouse, between the tide at the bottom and the grass at the top? He can do but one thing, he can shout, and, perhaps, may be heard, and a rope may come dangling down that he can spring at and catch. For sinful men in the miry pit the rope is already let down, and their grasping it is the same as the psalmist's cry. God has let down His forgiving love in Christ, and we need but the faith which accepts it while it asks, and then we are swung up into the light, and our feet set on a rock." Each one has depths peculiarly his own, and longs to be out of them. Then why not call to Him who hears men's cry from the depths, with the quiet confidence of quaint old Herbert, who wrote: [THE END] _ |
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