I do not think that the prodigal was at all sure of the welcome that awaited him. Probably his mind, as he limped along in his rags, was full of misgivings and fears. But the father hailed him as his son whenever he saw afar off that the lad’s face was set for home. I do not imagine our Father will concern Himself very much about the gaps in our creed if only our faces are turned homewards and towards Him. Let the man I have tried to speak to be of good courage, and fight on with a stout heart. Faith is not sight. It may not even be assurance, may be only hope and longing, and a reaching towards the Highest. But I firmly believe that no man, even though he may fall on the way home, and before he knows of his welcome, I believe that no man shall be cast out at the last, whose arms, as he fell, were outstretched in desire to God.
Prayer
O Lord our God, Author and Finisher of our faith, help us with all our strength to fight the good fight. When our defence is being broken, do Thou garrison our souls, O God, that we may be able to stand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
XVIII
The Equipment of Joy
“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10
Let us talk about joy, and especially that kind of it of which Nehemiah was thinking when he said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” It is strange that while practically everybody would agree as to the wholesomeness and the duty of joy in the ordinary sense of the term, to add the words “of the Lord” to it, seems, to some, completely to alter its character and in fact to spoil it, to turn it into an unreal sort of joy which is not true joy at all.
I wish emphatically to protest against such a conception of religious joy as an injustice to the Father Love of God. The joy of the Lord, as I understand it, is not different in quality from wholesome human gladness, it is, in fact, just that gladness deepened and sanctified by the sense of God, and the knowledge of Him brought to us by Jesus Christ our Lord. There is not a single innocent and pure source of gladness open to men and women on this earth but is made to taste sweeter when they have opened their hearts to the love of God. It is the very crown of happy living that is reached when a man can say, “My Lord and my God.” Once I have dared to accept the wonderful truth that even for me the Eternal Father has His place and His plan and His care, every simplest happiness, every common joy of living, every delight in the beauty of the world and the pleasures of home and work and friendship—every one of these takes on a keener edge. It is a pestilent heresy to declare that a Christian ought to walk through life like a man with a hidden sickness. On the contrary, there is no one who has a better right to be joyous and happy-hearted. Do you think it is for nothing that the “joy of our salvation” is a Bible phrase? And shall we believe that that salvation is ours and not be mighty glad about it all the time? What is the good of translating “Gospel” as “good news” and at the same time living as if religion were a bondage and a burden grievous to be borne? Of all the strange twists of human convention, it is surely the strangest to allow ordinary human joy to be happy and cheerful, and to insist that those whose joy is in the Lord should pull a long face, and forswear laughter, and crawl along dolefully as if to the sound of some dirge! The “morning face and the morning heart” belong of right to the truly religious, and no one ought to be gladder, come what may, than the man who has made the highest and best disposal of his little life that anyone can make, namely, surrendered it in faith and obedience to his Lord.
A gloomy, ponderous, stiff religion which looks askance at innocent merriment and is afraid to pull a long breath of enjoyment has the mark of “damaged goods” on it somehow, and no one will take it off your hands. It is not catching, and certainly your children will never catch it. It is said to be a good test of a religion that it can be preached at a street corner. But I know a better test than that. Preach it to a child. Set him in the midst of those who profess it. If their religion frightens him, freezes the smiles on his lips, and destroys his happiness, depend upon it, whatever sort of religion it be, it lacks the essential winsomeness of the religion of Jesus Christ.
I need not say, of course, that I am not pleading for a more hilarious religious life. And, equally of course, empty frivolity, and the cult of the continual grin
