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Show .... -v- This Tinie,this Day, this Age PROGRESS By Valene Lee Progress has been an unalterable law since time became known to man, and must continue from the very nature of its inexhaustible source. So when the first car rattled its way over the long country road, children ran to hide and grown men jumped clear off the road. The more modern of the people shrugged their shoulders and said, "We are living in a very fast age." Today we have Zeppelins, seaplanes, airplanes, air-planes, and cars galore. There are telephones in nine-tenths of the homes and radios, etc. So we shrug our shoulders and remark without enthusiasm, "We are living in a very fast age." With modern conveniences bringing states and cities to sisterliness, and countries to neighborliness we have the trouble much squabbling over small matters. But progress has been the keynote of harmony from before the world was and must continue. ..... Some ot, our leading Denominations are raising the dying from couches of pain and the scripture, "Greater works than these shall ye do for I go to my father," is on the way to fulfillment, so let us shake hands, every nation of us and be friends. And let us bend our every effort to cooperate with the law of progress, instead of violating that law with war and bloodshed which reaps its usual harvest REGRET. Progress is built on religion and can come from no other source than God, so there would be more individual progress and success in the world if people took a more practical view , of religion and applied it in their daily, lives. When I say that God is infinite and is the supreme government of the world, no one will argue with me or contradict me, but no one will bother to take up the dictionary and try to find out just what the word "infinite" means which in itself expresses more than the human mind can grasp. People who believe that God is a corporeal person arrayed ar-rayed in pomp and splendor, cannot believe or cannot have pondered the "Bible" which indicates in numerous quotations that "God is a very present help in time of trouble." This opinion has been more commonly accepted by most "old fashioned fa-milies." Believing that he is a corporeal person sitting on a throne, located so many million miles away they cannot even estimate it, they kneel down and pray in despair or longing, hoping faintly perhaps that this glorified person would hear even them little, insignificant they, out of all the others who must be crying too. Then if their prayers were answered they would be utterly astonished, and in pondering it later they would set themselves up in their own opinion above everyone else, because God had heard them out of millions mil-lions of others, instead of being filled with love and gratitude to God for the answer. For this reason a sinner's prayer cannot be answered, and you are a sinner as long as you do not pick up your "Bible," search the Scriptures, and through unselfish prayer try to become more acquainted with God who is our Father and Creator. You may be sure with a spirit of this kind that God will not be very far from you and he will hear you. Then if you continue to serve him in your daily life, you are no more a sinner but his servant and loved of him, and you will be answered unless you "ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your own lusts." Bible. People who are satisfied with their present mode of living are not apt to put forth much consecrated effort to learn more about God. In fact, they cannot see where he applies practically prac-tically to any part of their life, they put him far to one side and pursue their way MONEY, POPULARITY, POMP and SPLENDOR being things of major consideration. Would anyone kneel down and ask God for these things? Woul dthey not know that these things are they which are spoken of when we are warned against asking "amiss that ye may consume it upon your own lusts", that lust being the apeasement of their vanity. Since they cannot ask God for these things, they ask him for nothing at all. They go all out to obtain these things for themselves in their own way, not needing God. They seem to obtain certain degrees of success, but into every life some sorrow must fall. Then they kneel down to pray to God in despair or longing, a God who seems to them a million miles away. An elderly couple taking a sunbath under an umbrella, remind me so much of God's children who carry about with them an umbrella woven of materialistic ideas: Pride, ambition, ambi-tion, self-reliance, etc. Fate in the from of a kindly gust of wind blows the umbrella away and the sunshine of God's love steals gently over them, healing sore hearts and sore joints alike. How many more blessings could be added if we could lay aside the umbrella of our own accord. But we hug our umbrella and cling to it with might and main until the winds of affliction wrest it from our grasp. |
