Does He Care?

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Title:     Does He Care?
Author: Henry Frederick Cope [More Titles by Cope]

The One at The Helm
The Shepherd and The Sheep
The Father's Care

Faith's fervour is more than effervescence.

The lights of the world are not advertising signs.

Sow the sand and you reap only cinders in your eyes.

No man ever broke his back under his brother's burden.

The fear of reputation is often taken for the love of righteousness.

You cannot cure your sorrows by taking them out in a wheel chair.

A niggardly purse in the pocket becomes a thorn in the side.

Tears over yesterday's broken toys blind us to today's treasures.

Things do not prove themselves sacred by segregating themselves from secular concerns.

Heaven intrusts no great cargo to the vessel that spreads its sails to every wind that blows.

When a man is getting fat out of the fall of others he is sure to be a warm advocate of their right to be free to fall.

Many a man will be surprised when he gets to heaven to find how large a place his little kindly deeds occupy in its history.

 

THE ONE AT THE HELM

Danger tears away our disguises. In hours of peril the true man appears, and at such times, if ever, the man speaks the truth. Fearing the boat was sinking, the disciples had little thought of the dignity or the divinity of the one who lay asleep in the helmsman's place. Rudely they awaken Him with their indignant cries, wondering why one who had spoken such wondrous words before seems indifferent now to their danger. "Carest Thou not that we perish?" they cry.

Every man who has been accustomed to take God for granted has used almost the same words at some time in his life. The hour of tempest, when the uncontrollable waves of trouble and winds of adversity seemed ready to overwhelm him, when he had done all that mortal might do, then it seemed as though this God to whom he had prayed so often, of whom he had learned to think as part of his life, was absent or indifferent.

It is the question of every soul in sorrow or testing, "Does God care anything about me?" It is more than a speculative inquiry then. Theologians may have drawn up their specifications of the Most High, and, in the peaceful ways of their lives, they may be satisfied with their handiwork. But when, even into their cloistered walks, some great sorrow or grim death has come stalking, then, with dry lips and moist brow they cry, "Master, are you asleep? Do you not care?"

What is there at the helm of this great ship of life? Is there any one or is it steered automatically, blindly holding its way and heeding neither waves nor rocks nor other craft? Has this universe a heart or only an engine at its centre? The inquiry becomes pressing and pertinent, indeed, when inexplicable distress and anguish that seem all unnecessary break down all the man's strength and courage.

A man can no more content himself with a far off being, sitting in the heavens in royal state, winning reverence by remoteness, than his own children would be satisfied to know him only as a sovereign. He craves the friendship of that one; he longs for compassion, sympathy, assistance such as friend gives to friend; in a word, he looks for love. You cannot love an absentee God any more than you can love an abstraction or a theory.

But the need of one who will come close into our lives, who aids in the hour of extremity, does not meet itself. The fact remains that often we seem to be left to the mercy of the tempest; the elements do their worst and no hand is lifted and no voice is heard that still the waves. Full often the storm seems to finish its work and only clinging to the wreckage or swept on the waves do we come into port.

Is there any answer to the great question, Does any greater one care for our lives? If we are looking for an answer as susceptible to demonstration as a mathematical proposition we are doomed to disappointment. It is possible to believe in providence without being able either to prove or fully comprehend it. The child must become the parent before he can understand the ways of the father or mother with him; yet he can know their love before he can comprehend their ways.

Nothing could do more harm than to have the absolute assurance that an almighty friend would fly to our aid and protection in every time of danger or need. A friend whose power relieved us from the necessity of prudence or courage or endeavour would be a foe indeed. The All Wise loves man too well and too wisely to make plain always His ways of caring for him and His purposes of protection.

The furrowed faces and whitened heads of men may be the will of love as truly as the smooth ways of ease and complacency. There is one at the helm, but His concern is more for the making of strong sailors than for the securing of smooth sailing. The best evidence of the care of the Most High for all the sons of men is not in the immediate unbaring of His arm for their protection, but rather in the manner in which He causes the wind and the waves, the struggle with the tempest, the need for the nerving of the soul in the hour of peril all to work out His will, the will of great love, the bringing of the mariner to His likeness in character and soul.

 

THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP

Millions have lived and died in faith in that word, The Lord is my Shepherd; nations have sung its strain into the strength of their being. The picture of the one who leads His flock, who carries the lambs in His arms, appeals to all; yet who has not some time, perhaps often, questioned: After all, is there any one who cares; is there any eye to see or heart to heed if I--or, indeed, all men--should faint or fall by the way?

Perhaps there are some who no longer find aught beyond an imagery of poetic beauty in the old strain, who even feel that it would be retreating intellectually to conceive of an infinite heart that broods over men or a hand that helps. They tell us that science has wiped out the possibility of such an one as this great Shepherd of the flock of humanity. Yet even they are not dead to this great thought that so long stirred men's souls and made them brave, ready to sacrifice, to die.

The truth is, the singer of long ago was but giving expression, in figures familiar to him, of a truth we all apprehend with greater or less clearness, one that alone gives strength, hope, and faith to our hearts, the conviction that back of all the warring purposes and jangling discords of our lives and our world there is reason, and order, and beneficence.

The science that seemed to wipe out the conception of a mighty Creator who fashioned the first man with His fingers, but emphasizes with a stress that grows from day to day the fact that this universe is not without order, its forces as sheep without a shepherd; that the stars are not wandering, nor the least atom without guidance; that, as one put it long ago, all things work together for good.

If the remotest particle of matter is bound up with the mighty laws of the universe, guided, governed, led to its appointed end, bound to serve its purpose, shall we not have faith that the law that guides the atom and holds the planet, pervades all the universe and takes us in its mighty grasp?

Not with doubt but with larger meaning and deeper assurance may I sing, "The Lord is my shepherd," thinking not only of one who takes up my little life and carries it, but of the great fact of all life under law, law divine, all pervading, moving in majesty on to the completion of its purposes. I may not know what the Shepherd looks like; I may have lost my old simple pictures of personality and appearance; the larger fact grows too great for fixed words.

This is to see the guidance of the Shepherd in the great things of our world as well as in the little. It is a strange, a poor religion that believes that providence will send a man his dinner but never gives a thought to the great purposes working out through all the strife of our common life, through our industrial, social, and political problems, nor remembers that life is more than meals or millinery.

There is the large faith which we need for all times, to believe that a plan is being wrought out behind all the seeming chaos, that there is a purpose even though we cannot yet trace its lines, to be willing to go on doing our work, laying down our lives, because the great world needs us; the Shepherd cannot bring His flock to the green pastures and the still waters unless we live and labour and die.

There is only one solution to all the mystery of our lives, the riddle of history and the universe; it is the spirit solution, that we are but the offspring, as all things are but the creation of Spiritual forces; that we are working out spiritual destinies, the green pastures and the still waters are but emblems of felicities and beauties beyond our tongue, the full orbed glory of the soul to which the Shepherd leads by toilsome mountain ways or dreary desert trails; but at last we come to the house of the Lord, where we may dwell forever.

 

THE FATHER'S CARE

Formal creeds have little to say of the belief in the overruling care of the All Father. Perhaps the belief is so nearly universal as to be without the range of debate so dear to creed makers. Yet at all times, in all lands, man, whether the savage, the oriental mystic, or the cool-headed Christian, in various ways and with different phrases, has recognized the hand that, from behind the scenes, touched his affairs and often seemed to order his life. Whether it be the hand of force or of friend, the fact has been felt.

True, the laziest man is apt to have the readiest sense of the intention of Providence to care for him, to send him bread well buttered; the foolish and thoughtless depend on heaven to do their thinking, and many court bankruptcy while praying for solvency. But the improvidence of man does not disprove the providence of God. So far from encouraging sloth and recklessness this truth provokes to progress by the assurance of the coöperation of infinite powers with our best endeavours.

It is a thought we cannot escape; the all wise must be the all loving. The spirit at the centre of all must embrace all within the circle of his love; and that love will not lie quiescent, helpless when its objects are in distress, in perplexity, or need, when it might succour, save, or suggest the way of success. If there is a heart of love there is a hand of help.

Yet it seems too great a thought. What are we but dust on the wheels of the universe? Often do our fainting hearts question whether there be any, outside our own little circle, who care whether we suffer, whether we succeed. Can it be that the petty affairs of a life that passes like the hoar frost before the morning sun can even interest, still less call forth the aid, of the one in whom we all live and move and have our being?

Despite all questionings men will ever go on praying to that one; they will turn to an ear that hears, they will seek a heart that feels, and look for hands reached out in hours of necessity. Experience indorses their faith. Nearly all can look back and see where destiny has seemed to breathe upon them; their old plans wilted, and new ones, and new ways sprung up, bearing other and fairer flowers than they had ever dreamed; a mighty, mysterious power had intervened.

What does it all mean? That we are but puppets in these strange unseen hands; that we can neither will nor work for ourselves? No; it but means what poets sang long ago when, seeking after that which far transcends all thought and all imagery, they cried, "Surely Thou art our Father." That which was best in them, the holy fire of fatherhood, became a mirror in which they saw the infinite.

From the source of all life, humanity has learned the great lessons of family care and provision. All that is good in our families is true of this great family of all mankind. The great purpose of this family, as of all families, is the development of the highest, fullest life in its members. Fatherhood regards the provision of food, clothing, and shelter but as incidental to the great purpose of training the children.

This is the purpose of the Father of us all, to develop the best in us. When our weak hearts cry for ease, for rest, for pleasures, He sends the task, the sorrow, the loss. When we think all life's lessons well learned He sends us up to higher grades with harder tasks. Yet ever over all is the pitying, compassionate yearning of a father's heart that never forgets the weakness of the child.

Wisely the father's love seems to hide its working. Like all things deep and sublime it passes comprehension; it may often seem like indifference. All the child can do is to bend every effort to do his best, to work out the father's plan so far as he knows it, to know, through all, that God is good. Then, when the child grows to the man, the man towards the divine, the things that seemed strange are made plain in the light of the Father's face.

[The end]
Henry Frederick Cope's essay: Does He Care?

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