Did he Love God?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 4, 1872

WHILE a theological student at Rochester, I undertook a quasi-pastoral charge for a time, of a small country church some twelve miles distant, too poor to maintain a resident minister. As I could command leisure for the purpose, I used to visit the people of the community from house to house with the errand of the gospel in free and familiar personal talk.

It was near nightfall of a lovely summer Saturday, that I called at the house of a prosperous young farmer, of whom I had previously heard as a man of excellent moral character, but whom I had never met before. I found him frank and friendly in manner, and there was no obstacle to easy conversation.

After a few preliminary commonplaces exchanged between us, the transition was natural enough to the benevolence of God as displayed in the bounty of nature. My sentiments on this topic met a cheerful and ready response.

“Strange,” said I, “that so few of us love God, when we all of us think him so good. Do you love him?” I asked suddenly and bluntly, just as I would have asked any other question which could imply no offense.

“Why, as to that,” said he, “I should consider that everybody ought to love God.”

“Yes, no doubt of that. Still the obligation to love him and loving him are not quite the same. You admit you ought to love him; now do you love him? How as to that?”

It was rather closer quarters than he had prepared himself for. But he made up his mind to face his dilemma.

“Well—yes—I believe I do love God,” he answered, manfully resolved to take a step forward without well knowing whether it would lead him.

“You still answer a little uncertainly. You believe you love God. We generally know when we love any one. There are several pretty sure signs.”

“What signs?”

“For instance, if we love any one we think of that one often. This is so much the case that it has come to be an equivalent phrase. We say of one that we love, ‘I think a great deal of so-and-so.’ Isn’t this so?”

“Yes. I am even more apt to say I think a good deal of a person than to say that I love him.”

“Well, now, apply that test to your love for God. Do you think a great deal of God?”

The man hesitated.

“Have you thought of him to-day?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“This week?”

“Couldn’t be certain that I have.”

“Within a month?”

“Well, yes. I should say that I have thought of God within a month.”

“And do you suppose you average a thought of God once a month?”

“I think I do.”

“Is thinking of God twelve times a year thinking a good deal of God—is it loving him?”

The man was silent.

“There is another test. We are certain to talk of those whom we love. A mother knows who her son’s favorite companions are at school—he has so much to say about them. You can consider within yourself how much you spontaneously talk about God.”

Something in the spirit of our conversation, I suppose it was, or perhaps it was wholly a heavenly influence breathed into the man, that made him not merely patient under this cross examination, but even desirous, apparently, to feel the probe thrust deeper yet into the quick.

“One more test of love,” I said. “We are fond of doing things for those whom we love. You are industrious, honest, truthful, kind-hearted, your neighbors say. Why are you so? Have you a thought in it of pleasing God? Do you ever say to yourself, ‘Now this I will do, because it will please God, for I love him?’”

That candid witness against himself confessed that he could not remember having ever in the whole course of his life done a single act for the sake of pleasing God. The evening drew on, and I bade him good-night. I never knew whether he found out afterwards how industry, honesty, truthfulness, and kindness, become transfigured from a task into a delight, when they are animated with the loving spirit of a conscious personal love to a personal God revealed and accessible in Christ Jesus.—Christian Weekly.