The Last Word
Once upon a time, more years back than I like to contemplate now, I was a simple country lad, intrigued with all of the manifestations of nature. Ours was a family steeped in poverty and although I did not realize it, I was what the social workers of today call an underprivileged child. Unable to have those toys and playthings which cost money, we devised and constructed our own crude ones, and since I was of a more serious disposition I found pleasure and thrill in observation of the commonplace.
There were days when I lay on my back in the orchard watching a hawk or an eagle floating effortlessly in the sky upon a thermal current, and other days when I lay on my stomach on the creek bank watching a snake writhe his sinuous way across the flat rock projecting over the clear stream. Both were marvels to me before I knew that they had challenged the thinking of wise men for generations, and I shall never forget when I first read in Proverbs 30:18, 19, "Three things are too wonderful for me, four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden."
There were occasions when God seemed very near. This was especially true on cold winter nights when the crisp snow crunched under one's step, and the thousands of twinkling stars seemed to shimmer so much closer to earth. It was also true when spring came with its resurrection of buds and blooms, and its promise of rebirth. There was no question about the existence of God. It was blasphemy in our ears to hear one even profane the sacred name with oaths or cursing. Each time we sat down at the table we asked him to bless our meager fare. It never occurred to us that he might not hear.
Later, in that crucial period through which a boy passes as he wrestles with his own soul while he climbs the steeps toward manhood there were times of fleeting doubt. How do I know that God really exists? Do I believe as I do simply because I have been taught to do so by my parents, and how can I be sure they are right about God, seeing that my increasing knowledge proves that they have been wrong about so many other things?
Those were times of mental agony and intellectual suffering but I know now they had to come. They were essential to the development of a mature faith and personal conviction. After all, an infant learning to walk regards every wrinkle in the rug as a hill and every chair as a mountain. And the intellectual infant who stumblingly leaves the mental protection of his parents, like the physical one who fearfully leaves their arms, may exaggerate the obstacles in his path.
I am now at the place where I can assess realistically the values by which I would like to die as well as those by which I propose to live the days remaining on the earth. Strangely enough, I find myself thrown back upon the resources of the same kind of faith and trust which I knew as a child. The difference lies in the fact that then it was compulsory but now it is by choice. Then I was driven to it by sheer lack of knowledge, now I am dependent upon it because of the knowledge of how much I shall never know of myself.
I am not willing to conclude that all of the apologetic approach of the past must be discarded. To me some of it, at least, seems to be valid and worthy of consideration. And yet I realize that it may not speak as meaningfully to others as it does to me. For that reason I have not written to persuade or convince others, but rather to testify of my personal convictions and to explain why I hold them. I will not provoke discussion with those who disagree.
I have not concerned myself with being either theologically or scientifically profound because I am not qualified to be either. It was my hope, as I began to write, that I could explain the faith of a plain man so that common folk would read with understanding. If I have failed in this my real purpose and mission have been thwarted.
It may well be that the very simplicity exhibited will appear to be radical in a sophisticated age, but it seems to me that a disciple of the Son of man will always appear so to the sons of men in the generation of his sojourn among them. The word "radical" means "root," which explains why it appears in our word "radish." A radical may be one who insists on getting to the root of things and it is regrettable that the term is now applied almost exclusively to one who seeks to "uproot" existing conditions.
I must plead guilty to being a radical in the best sense of the word. I firmly believe the universe is rooted in the creative power of an intellectual Being to whom we are responsible. It is this which gives meaning, purpose and direction to life. The thought of His watchful care and concern brings inner serenity and tranquility in life and provides hope of existence beyond the portals at the end of the road.
Mine is a living faith. God lives, Christ lives, and the revealed word is a living word. Because of this I also live. Life is a reality and in this reality I am a partaker of the infinite grace and of ultimate being. The sting of death has been extracted by the forceps of faith. The bondage of fear has been lifted by the resurrection. Even while tied to earth by the umbilical cord of the flesh through which I am sustained, I know that the time will come when I shall be delivered into that fuller state of being for which we are destined. And the throes of death will really become the pangs of birth.
I find myself with a great deal of compassion for one who cannot believe. It is the same kind of feeling I always experience when I meet a blind person tapping along the sidewalk with his white cane, and never knowing what lies in his path ahead. I am sure there must always be an inner sense of fear and dread despite the studied attempt to appear normal and carefree.
We were made to believe and we could not long survive in an utterly faithless world. If we convince ourselves that we are merely combinations of minerals and chemicals and gases, produced by the earth and doomed to return to it, to be absorbed into nothingness, the earth will be nothing but a whirling prison, careening madly through space until all of its inhabitants are blindfolded and led into the death-chamber. Our very homes will cease to be islands of love and understanding and become cells of hopelessness on death row.
But if we believe that Jesus lived and died and rose again, the earth is placed in proper perspective. It is not a grim dragon breathing volcanic smoke and fumes, and opening up its waiting jaws to swallow us. Instead, it is the rest stop on a longer journey, sometimes dirty and uncomfortable as rest stops often are, but holding forth promise of the more glorious day ahead when the journey is completed.
And so I have come full circle, from childhood faith to childlike trust, and I am thrilled to have made the trip. I would not want to go back over the route again, bestrewn as it is with rusty mementoes of my failures, but I am happy that I have come the distance and can rest under the tree whose shade I welcomed and whose fruit I plucked when life was less hectic and responsibilities were fewer. And I know of no better words in conclusion than these which I have borrowed from a far nobler pilgrim than myself:
"For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." To him be all praise!