The Sense of a Comrade-God


None of these things move me . . .--Acts 20: 24.

This was a decisive moment in Paul’s career. He was under a compelling urge of the spirit to go to Jerusalem. He had been warned that persecution and bonds, perhaps death, awaited him there. But he declared: “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Paul was able to go to Jerusalem without any fear of what might befall him there, because he knew he was in God’s great keeping.

In the pursuit of his ministry Paul often found himself in difficult and dangerous situations. He suffered much, endured many hardships, encountered cruel treatment, often bitter persecution. But through it all, he had the sense of God’s comradeship. Amid all his trials and troubles he experienced the companionship of a wise, good and loving Father. Therefore, he knows that he Is not an orphan in a friendless universe; that he is not a helpless chip, beaten about by the currents of time; that he is not a rudderless ship, tossed about on blind waves, with no certain port; that “Behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows, keeping watch above His own.”

Why are so many people frightened back when duty calls? Why are so many people crushed by trouble? Why does suffering make them bitter? Why does adversity sour them? Why are so many lacking in the self-possessed experience of Paul?

The answer is close--in their own hearts. They have no comrade-God in their experience. They hear no Father’s voice amid the confused noises of life.

In the Book of Revelation, the apostle John hears a voice, saying: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1: 17-18). Hearing that voice and listening to what it went on to say, there came to John a new confidence in the ultimate triumph of good over evil, truth over falsehood, life over death. The human heart needs to hear that voice if it is to rise above the troubles and sorrows of life into a serene and abiding confidence.

The answer to all our fears and misgivings lies in the sense of a comrade-God.