Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1314061
11 RESTORED JOY Psalm 51:10-12 I need to be reminded of God's limitless might and mercy, reminded not just one day out of the year, but every day. Normally my life, despite its busyness, is as happy as I could desire. But star ting last summer I passed through a sequence of experiences that disturbed me deeply. What they were is really of no significance. One thing happened, however, then another, and another. For instance, in October while with some missionary friends at a Philadelphia restaurant, their Ford van, locked and in a public parking lot, was broken into and my suitcase and briefcase stolen. The loss of possessions is nothing especially distressing; clothes and books—unless the book is a prized Greek New Testament, a gift from a friend many years dead—can be replaced. But, alas, the briefcase, which held lectures, notes, and manuscripts accumulated over a long time, was irreplaceable. Well, that was one in a series of incidents which, put together, induced a pall of spiritual oppression I could not shake off. Under such circumstances, as some of you know firsthand, the age-old battle between faith and reason assumed terrible intensity. The problems of pain and sin and evil and eternal destiny occupy the center of consciousness, refusing to retreat even when one attacks them with logic, prayer, and childlike reliance on God's Word. Nobody except my wife was aware that behind the facade of customary cheerfulness a heaviness was weighing me down, the like of which had never before obsessed me. It persisted week after week. Then one Saturday morning deliverance came. It was as though I had been staggering along a rugged mountain trail under a pack too crushing to carry, and suddenly a strong hand lifted that weight from my shoulders. Once again I could walk upright and free—no, I could stride on my way like thistledown borne by a breeze. The sense of both relief and exhilaration would be difficult to exaggerate, the reassurance of God's love and power in all their overwhelming sufficiency. Nothing mystical occurred, I must emphasize, but whatever took place has made intensely meaningful to my own hear t the simple prayer, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." God did just that—and the quiet joy has not proved evanescent; it has gone on and on like the sustaining bass-tone of a symphony. -VCG, 1968 DECEMBER 7