The beginning of Salvation is to think. Nothing causes us to think so much as sorrow, suffering, and pain; and they melt the heart also, and they humble pride. The man who has never suffered, and never loved, is more to be pitied than the paralytic: his chance of Life is remote.
How can we reasonably expect that the road back to our long-since forsaken God is to be smooth, pleasant, velvet-covered. What divides us from God? Is it happiness, beauty, and light? No—self-indulgence, rocks of evil, ugly greeds, places of sin and selfishness. Can we climb back through all this, most of it in darkness, without tears, without pain, without every kind of anguish?
Over this part of the road is no peace; but continue, and, little by little, peace comes.
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We say that we must find Christ; but where, and how, shall we find this Mighty Lord, Who comes out from the Father to meet the Prodigal? Must we study in ecclesiastical colleges, travel to distant lands, visit holy places, kneel on celebrated sacred ground, kiss stones, attend ceremonies, look at bones?
No! Stand still! Just where we are is the place where we can meet Him. Just where we stand to-day can be as sacred, as blessed, as the Holy Land. Some little wood sprinkled with flowers, our own quiet room, an unknown, nameless hillside—these can be as holy as Mount Carmel, because He meets us there.
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In all these experiences of the soul which has refound God, what is it that truly rejoices her? Is it the learning and knowledge that the pursuit of Truth may bring her to? She values Truth and knowledge because they lift her towards Him Whom she seeks and loves. Does the soul rejoice in ecstasies because they are ecstasies? No: what she values is the recaptured knowledge and certainty of heavenly living—in however small or brief a degree she is able to attain it in flesh: and because in the experience of ecstasy she knows Him to Whom she belongs.
All other affairs become nothing whatever. Life on earth is now entirely a means of relearning how to please Him Whom she has found. Her concern is that she may quickly so prepare herself that she may behold Him for ever.
It may well be asked of a soul which claims to have found God, How does she know that she has encountered Him?