In the Beginning God
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No life can be complete, however much of beauty it may have in it—which leaves out God. No path can be a safe one, however sheltered it may seem—in which God is not leading us. We never can find our way home—unless we are guided from heaven. We should make sure that, whatever other friends we have, we have Jesus Christ!
The first words in the Bible very strikingly tell us the place that God should have in every life, "In the beginning God." It is no wresting of the Scriptures to take these words, apart from their connection, as presenting the sublimest truth in all the range of thinking. They carry us back into the eternal past, before there was anything else but God. "Before the mountains were brought forth, before you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God."
This is the meaning of the words as they stand thus picturesquely at the beginning of the Bible. But there is also a fitness in considering the words in another sense. Not only was God before all things and the Author of all creation—but he should be given a place at the beginning of everything. "In the beginning God" should be the watchword of all life. We belong to God and should recognize his ownership by voluntarily giving ourselves to him. This is the initial act of every true consecration. When we have done this, God stands at the beginning of everything for us. We enthrone him in our heart, giving him our supreme affection. We look to him as Lord, waiting at every step for his command. We trust him as our Father, turning with every want to him. Thus in all our personal life God is first, if we are living in true relations to him.
Then there are special applications.
The words should be written over the gateway of every new day, "In the beginning God." God's face should be the first we see in the morning when we open our eyes. His voice should be the first we hear with its benediction of love and grace. He should be the first to whom we speak, lifting up our hearts in praise and in supplication for guidance and blessing. "In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation." Psalm 5:3. "I cry to You for help, O Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before You." Psalm 88:13
A day with God truly at its beginning, cannot but be a prosperous day. It may not be easy. It may not be cloudless. Its burdens may be heavy. Its tasks may be hard. It may have its crosses, its sorrows, its tears. But nothing can go really wrong with our life—if we have truly put it into God's hands in the morning.
Yet there are people who never pray. They rise from their bed in the morning, after enjoying a night's protection, and after receiving blessings from God in sleep—and never say a word nor have an emotion of gratitude! They go out into a new day, with its wilderness of unrevealed experiences, not knowing what they are to meet, through what dangers they must pass—and yet never whisper a prayer for guidance, for help, for blessing. How can anyone who thus begins his day—expect all things to go well with him? A prayerless day is a day of peril.
A prayerless day, never can be anything but a day of loss and failure. It may not seem so. Business may be prosperous as ever. The table may be bountifully spread. God "makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." But however happy a day may seem to be, if it lacks heaven's benediction it is a sad day.
One writes, "We need to lift our eyes each morning to the perfect standard, and to test our lives each night by the divine character. And when this shows us forthwith our own crookedness and selfishness, and convicts us of evil, we need to ask humbly for daily pardon. So also, amid the tumult and dazzle of the busy world, we need to drink in daily quietness from the fountain of the peace of God. Under the strain of our daily temptations we are driven back on Christ's unseen grace and strength. Thus every fresh trial and worry and failure becomes to the Christian—a fresh summons which calls him to prayer."
If we would have our days bright and beautiful and full of peace, we need only to start at God's feet and to keep him first in our life through all the day to its close. We have it in one of the Psalms, "I have set Jehovah always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."
The words are peculiarly fitting also for a birthday motto, or for the opening of a new year. We cannot see into the year's life, to know what it may hold for us—but we need not care to know. Faith is better than sight. Walking with God in the dark—is safer than walking alone in the light.
There is something very suggestive in the way the Christian world designates the years, Anno Domini, "In the year of our Lord." The birth of Jesus Christ introduced a new era. Time before that, is not counted—the only years that it is worth while to record are the years since Christ came. We should strive, therefore, to make each year indeed a year of our Lord. We can do this by giving Christ his true place at the beginning and then by having him in all our life throughout the year. But the mere writing of the legend, "In the year of our Lord," on our letter sheets and at the head of our business papers, will not itself consecrate the year.
A man bought an illuminated scroll, neatly framed, and brought it home. On it were the words, "God Bless Our Home." It was hung up in the dining-room and was an ornament to the room. But somehow it did not seem to bring the blessing. The home continued to be full of wrangling and strife and all manner of ill nature. There was no more love after the scroll was hung up than before. An illuminated motto will not sweeten a home, nor bring good into it. Neither will the writing of Anno Domini, "In the year of our Lord "—over a year make it beautiful, or cast any glory upon it.
We make it truly a year of the Lord, only by giving Christ the first place in all its life. He must be first in our business. This means that we must conduct the business as his, not as our own. We must do it according to the principles of righteousness and truth which he has laid down, making every transaction as holy as a prayer or a sacrament. He must be first, also, in our personal life. It is possible to carry on a business honestly, on principles ethically Christian, and yet not to have God in the place which belongs to him. He wants our life first, before our business. "Not yours—but you," is the claim he makes. "In the beginning God," as our motto for a new year, means God enthroned in our heart and filling all our life.
Paul expressed the truth when he said, "To me to live is Christ." He held up the same ideal also when he exhorted, "Whatever you do, in word or in deed—do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." We need to look to our own personal life, that there God may always be first. Then there will be no failure in the things we do. If we love God supremely—we may do what we will. In all the details of our plans, dreams, aspirations, and hopes this should be the motto, "In the beginning God." No friendship should be formed—unless it has the divine approval, and unless God be its cementing bond. No ambition should be cherished—unless the honor of God be its goal. No new work should be undertaken—unless in it God has the first place. There is a promise that if we acknowledge him in all our ways—that he will direct our paths. If only we give God his place at the beginning of everything, all our life will be blessed.
One of Frances Ridley Havergal's poems, tells us of an Aeolian harp which a friend sent with a letter describing the wonderful sweetness of its tones. Miss Havergal took the harp and thrummed its seven strings—but there were no thrilling strains, only common music. She read the letter again and found instructions which she had overlooked at first. Then she raised the window and put the harp under the sash. Now the wind swept over the strings and the room was filled with melodious strains which no fingers of man could have produced. Only when the breath of heaven blew upon the harp could its marvelous music be brought out.
The human soul is such a harp. Human fingers call out much that is lovely and sweet, but it is only when its chords are swept by the breath of heaven, by the Holy Spirit, that its noblest music is called out.
<p align="center">When Prayer Is NOT the Duty
There are many commands to pray. We are taught in everything to make our requests known to God. We are bidden to be instant in prayer, to cast our burden on the Lord. Yet prayer is not all of a pious life. Committing our way unto the Lord, rolling it upon him, does not absolve us from duty. There are prayers of indolence and prayers of selfishness, and with neither of these prayers is God pleased.
Prayer, then, is not always the duty of the hour. It would seem that once Moses was rebuked for continuing in prayer. It was when the Hebrews were shut in beside the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's army pressing behind them. "Why do you cry unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." Clearly, duty for Moses that moment, was not to stay on his knees, crying to God for deliverance and help. Rather it was to cease praying, to rise up and lead the people forward.
We are commanded to wait for the Lord—but there is an over-waiting which loses the blessing. Faith is not all reclining trust; part of it always is action. To trust and do nothing—will win no victories. We must rise from our praying—and go forward.
There are many common illustrations of this truth. Your neighbor is in some trouble. You hear of it, and, being a believer in prayer, you go to your place of devotion and plead that God would send him the help that is needed. Almost certainly, however, prayer is not the duty in this case. Rather it is to cease your supplication and go quickly to your neighbor to do for him what he needs.
If a friend is taken suddenly very ill, or is injured in an accident, your duty is not to go to your closet and spend a season in prayer for him—but to hasten for a physician.
A city missionary tells of an experience in London. He was hurrying on his rounds one bitter January day, when he heard cries of little children in a house he was passing. He listened for a moment and knocked at the door—but no one answered his knocking. Then he opened the door and went in. He found himself in a miserable apartment, without furniture, without fire. In one corner, on a pile of straw, lay a woman, dead, with two children clinging to her and crying piteously. At a moment's glance the missionary saw the sadness of the case, and, falling upon his knees, began to call upon God. He believed in prayer, and pleaded with intense earnestness that heaven would send help to these orphaned children in their great distress. So importunate did he become in his pleading, that he spoke rashly, and said: "O God, send your angel to care for these poor, motherless children. Send at once, or my faith this instant dies." Immediately he seemed to hear, plainly and clearly, as if a divine voice were speaking to him, the words, "You are my angel; for this very purpose did I send you here." He saw now that he had no right to ask God to send any other messenger to minister to these needy little ones, that prayer was but a waste of God's time, and presumptuous. Taking the children by the hand, he quickly led them to a place of shelter, where they were cared for.
Sometimes when we pray we draw a little narrow circle about ourselves. We ask only for health, happiness, and comforts for our own lives, giving no thought to the world of suffering, sorrow, and need outside. Such prayers do not rise to heaven as incense.
It is always right to pray for the advancement of Christ's kingdom—but if we only pray and do nothing to set forward the cause for which we plead, our praying does not please God. We must be ready always to do with our own hand, that which we ask God to do. When God desires to help, bless, deliver, or save a man—he usually sends another man to do it. Ordinarily, when God puts it into our hearts to desire to do good to someone—we are the messengers he would send with the blessing. Our aspirations are firstinspirations. We may pray God to give help—but we must be ready at once to rise and go ourselves with the help.
Far more than we realize it, does God wish us to answer our own prayers. If we have plenty, and hear of one who is hungry, our duty is not to pray for him, asking God to send him bread, or to incline some good man to supply his wants; rather our duty is to hasten to share our plenty with him. It is little less than mockery to ask that help be sent from heaven or by some divine agency, to one in need—when we have in our own hands that which would meet and supply the need. God gave us our plenty—that we might help our brother.
We can imagine the priest, as he passed the wounded man, lying by the wayside, almost certainly—since he was a devout man—offering a prayer for him, asking God to help him. But his prayer availed not, for God had seen the man stricken down and had sent the priest that way, at that particular hour, for the very purpose of caring for him. Not prayer, then—but ministry, was the priest's duty just then, and no most earnest praying would be accepted in place of the human help the man was in need of, and the priest could have rendered.
There is a great deal of such failure in duty, making prayer an easy substitute for service which would cost effort, or self-denial, or money, asking the Lord to do in some supernatural way, or through other helpers, the things which he has sent us expressly to do. Men beseech God to have pity upon certain people who are living in sin, to send them the gospel and to save them. God does not do what they ask, because it is not thus, that the blessings sought can be given. Indeed, he has already long had pity upon these very people. His heart has gone out to them in yearning love and compassion. More than that, the very people who now pray so earnestly that he would show pity, God has sent to be his messengers of pity and mercy to these very lost ones, to tell them of Jesus Christ and to lead them to his cross. Instead, however, of fulfilling their commission, doing what they have been sent to do, they pause before their tasks and indolently ask God to do their work for them.
Good people come together in their church meetings and pray for the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the fallen, the heathen—and then do nothing themselves to carry to a sad world, the blessings which they so persistently implore God to send. No doubt the divine answer to many a pastor, as he leads his people in importunate prayer for help and blessing for the needy or troubled, for the extension of the kingdom of Christ, for the saving of souls, is, "Why do you cry unto me? Speak unto the people that they go forward." God is ready to do all that is asked of him, but he does it only through his people's faith, and their faith can be shown only in going forth to try to do the things that need to be done. When we pray for the sick and the suffering, we must go with our love and sympathy to do what we can for them. When we pray for the saving of the lost, we must go straight to them to tell them of the love of Christ, or to find some way, at least, to get the message to them.
Much praying for the blessing of the Holy Spirit is made powerless and unavailing by the same lack of faith and obedience. God is ever ready to give his Spirit, but such prayer always implies action. We have something to do if the blessing is to come. It was "as they went" that the ten lepers were cleansed. If they had not set out at once, in obedience to the command of the Master, healing would not have come to them. It is thus, too, with the giving of all spiritual blessings—they come not through prayer alone, but through our rising up from our knees and going forward in the path of duty, in the way of obedience, in the effort to attain the thing longed for. When we have asked God to give us his Spirit, we are to believe that we have the gift desired, and are to enter at once upon the life which the Spirit would have us live.
There is a duty of prayer, most sacred and holy, but prayer is by no means the only duty. The answer will never come while we stay on our knees—but only when we rise up and go forward!
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