| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 10 |
Page 3 |
The truth of the living God gives us confidence in prayers. Is there any one to hear us when we cry out of a sense of need, danger, or desire? Is there any one who cares to help us or bless us? If god is only a great central force at the heart of things, it is in vain that we bow down, morning and night, and tell out our heart’s yearnings. Can a Force hear the cry of the children, the pleading of the distressed, or the sighing of the prisoner? Would a man pray to the wind, or to the sun, or to gravitation? If there is no living God, there can be no prayer; for then there is no heart to care, no ear to hear, and no hand to help.
Suppose we were to learn that all this cherished belief of ours concerning prayer is a mistake, that there really is no one who cares for us, or can give us any help, how dark the world would become to us! Men who have been reared in the simple teachings of Christianity, believing in a God of love, in the cross of Christ, and in prayer, and then have lost these faiths, have confessed that in the fading out of the childhood lessons from their heart they have lost their sweetest joy and their dearest happiness, and that the brightness has died out of the world for them.
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