Norwich bulletin., 1920-01-24


 we live in unbroken happiness, with sunlight everywhere around us, we. are in danger of forgetting God by forgetting our need of prayer. It is. not "Jeshurun'' alone, who, when he ''waxed fat,r "forsook God. who made him. and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation" for we have all fall en into the same sin again, and again. Just as too great brightness of the sun causes the distant mountains to fade away, wrapped in haze of light, so in our summer day of gladness things unseen and eternal are hidden from us, and this present and passing world absorbs and occupies all our thoughts.
 Then God sends us trouble. The clouds gather; the sun is hidden; the storm falls upon us, and we walk in darkness and in fear; and then for the first time it may be for years, we begin to pray. The voice that through long years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity never blessed God for His mercy, now in the day of trouble is heard calling upon Him for deliver ance.
 This is not, it is true, the highest form of prayer; it is better to pray from fear than not to pray at all. The burden of a. great sorrow has brought us to our knees at last. So trouble, like prayer, begin to explain itself. We make a sudden discovery of ourselves, of our coldness and | worldliness and unbelief, and thous7 and promises of God that the glare of day had hiden, begin to shine upon us as the stars do when the night is come. And slowly. our prayer itself 1 changes. We begin to be more con- l cerned to be delivered from the trou- | ble we have found in our own eY1l | hearts and in our own evil wills, theT | from the sorrow that has shown us al | this unsuspected and terrible sin 1T ourselves, until at length the prayer i which began with passionate cry fol deliverance for the trouble, ends in far holier desire, Thy will be done,
 And when that will is done in us trouble has done it's blessed work God hears our prayer and the same hand of love that laid the weary bur. den on us. now removes it, and tht 1 thick clouds pass away and the sun kshine returns, and we walk singine | along the way. But it is a., 'neV song'' we are singing now. Before ou i trouble came, our song was of happi ness in ourselves; now it is of happi ness in our God. We 4glorify Him and that not only for our deliyerane' 1 from the burden or sorrow, put Io what He is in Himself to. us; for tn new life we have found in Him, ant for the new peace that the surrende
 of our will to His has brought to us. i What we need, then, is Father and a Father to whom we may go a freely as our children come to us ant into whose fatherly heart we may unhurden all our grief, sure that Hi sympathy and love will not send U
 unheard away. So long as man i l'born unto trouble as the sparks fl,
 upward" so long will this verse ant
 verses like it touch deep chord il
 his heart.
 A Let us never forget the individualit
 of Gods love and care for us in ou
 trouble. In this verse God speaks t
 the world as if there were but on
 child in it, and that child was ou self; and as if there.; were but on trouble in it, and that trouble was ou
 own. It has. been said that the mos
 precious thing in the. promises of Go l is that they are addressed not to tn
 many, but to the one; not to the inde finite ryou' but to the personal an
 individual thee and we may appl Z this here. The loWliest and hum ]; blest of Gods children may say, ]. sought the Lord and He heard ms ] and delivered me from all my fears.