Out Into the Storm

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 15, 1909

Out Into the Storm

I was one time in a room a hundred feet above the earth. A chimney-swift had found its foolish way into the room; and from scratchings on the window it was very apparent that all the day, and maybe days, it had tried to find its way through the window into the sky. I chanced to come there late one night, and found the swift baffled with the light I held in my hand. My heart was so sore with pity that I climbed and caught the trembling bit of bird and feather in my hand, and opening the window, put it out into the out-of-doors for which it was meant, and where its life was. But it turned its face my way, saw the flicker of the light, and flew back in.

So it did time and again, not knowing that the sky was its place, that the sky was about it, and not the peril a hundred feet below. It had wings, but didn't try them. At last I took the trembling bird and flung it into the sky, black and starless, and unlit by any lamp, and closed the window. Do you not observe that by my throwing it out into the sky I did not hurt it, but saved it? God must do that with us. Sometimes we think our safety is our home. What I am saying this morning to the praise of God is that sometimes he casts us out into jeopardy; because God is more concerned about our strength and our service and our enlarged life than he is that we have no peril.

If you think that God is trying the conservatory plan on your heart, you misunderstand him. In the conservatory they shut out the storm, and baffle the winds, and what they grow is flowers that the first spring breath, leaning to kiss them, would break. And God is concerned not that we get on easily, but that we get onto something that will stand when the final storm breaks.—Selected.