To be near unto God - pagina 553

Not from lack of will, but from shame. We knew that we must get back to God, but we postponed it. We wanted to pray, but we allowed fear. \\ell

time to intervene.

We

kept

silent.

And

in this

oppressive silence, which so sorely weighed upon the soul, we got farther and farther away from

God. This

is

the diagnosis,

e.

i.

the explanation of

wound from which at such a moment the soul bleeds. The only true medicine is immediately to the

break your silence, seek solitude, kneel down, and without sparing yourself confess plainly and candidly your sin before God, call upon him for forgiveness, yea, implore him that he take not his

Holy

spirit from you. This takes pains. At such a time 3^ou must do \-iolence to yourself. You feel the sharpness of God's anger, and back of it you must grasp his mercy. But the outcome of this is always surprising. It is just as David said. It breaks at once the ban which sin put upon the heart. Something in the soul gives way, and liberation follows, deliverance, reconciliation, and God comes near in faithfulness as Jesus pictured it in the shepherd with the lost sheep. It seems as though in such a moment God draws nearer than ever to convince you of his infinite compassion. Satan whispered within "Stay away from God," but your Father in heaven called out to you: "No, come unto me, my child." In this approach of your sin-confessing heart to God, and of God to your soul, the interruption falls away, :

649

.

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