FOUR MEN WERE sitting in the locker room of a country club after a game. Talk about golf scores drifted into a discussion of personal difficulties and problems. One man was especially despondent. The others, his friends, realizing his unhappy state of mind, had arranged this game to get his mind off his difficult situation. They hoped a few hours on the golf course might afford him some relief.
Now, as they sat around after the game, various suggestions were offered him. Finally one of the men arose to go. He knew about difficulties, for he’d had plenty himself, but he had found some vital answers to his problems. He stood hesitantly, then laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “George,” he said, “I hope you won’t think I am preaching at you. Really, I’m not, but I would like to suggest something. It’s the way I got through my difficulties. It really works if you work at it, and it’s this. ‘Why not draw upon that Higher Power?’”
He slapped his friend affectionately on the back and left the group. The other men sat mulling this over. Finally the discouraged man said slowly, “I know what he means and I know where the Higher Power is. I only wish I knew how to draw upon it. It’s what I need all right.”
Well, in due course he discovered how to draw upon that Higher Power, and it changed everything for him. Now he is a healthy, happy man.
The advice given at the golf club is really very wise. There are many people today who are unhappy and depressed and just not getting anywhere with themselves or with conditions. And they do not need to be that way. Really they don’t. The secret is to draw upon that Higher Power. And how is that done?
Let me tell you about a personal experience. When quite young I was called to a large church in a university community and many of my congregation were professors in the university as well as leading citizens of the city. I wanted to justify the confidence of those who gave me such an outstanding opportunity and accordingly worked very hard. As a result I began to experience overstrain. Everyone should work hard, but there is no virtue in overtrying or overpressing to such an extent that you do not work efficiently. It is somewhat like making a golf shot. Try to “kill” the ball and you execute the shot poorly. You can do likewise in your job. I began to get rather tired and nervous and had no feeling of normal power.
One day I decided to call on one of the professors, the late Hugh M. Tilroe, a great friend of mine. He was a wonderful teacher, and he was also a great fisherman and hunter. He was a man’s man, an outdoor personality. I knew that if I did not find him at the university he would be out on the lake fishing, and sure enough there he was. He came ashore at my hail. “The fish are biting—come on,” he said. I climbed in his boat and we fished awhile.
“What’s the matter, son?” he asked with understanding. I told him how hard I was trying and that it was getting me down nervously. “I have no feeling of lift or power,” I said.
He chuckled. “Maybe you’re trying too hard.”
As the boat scraped the shore he said, “Come in the house with me.” As we entered his cabin he ordered, “Lie down there on that couch. I want to read you something. Shut your eyes and relax while I find the quotation.”
I did as directed, and thought he was going to read me some philosophical or perhaps diverting piece, but instead he said, “Here it is. Listen quietly while I read it to you. And let these words sink in. ‘Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’” (Isaiah 40:28-31) Then he asked, “Do you know from what I am reading?”
“Yes, the fortieth chapter of Isaiah,” I answered.
“I’m glad you know your Bible,” he commented. “Why don’t you practice it? Now relax. Take three deep breaths—in and out slowly. Practice resting yourself in God. Practice depending upon Him for His support and power. Believe He is giving it to you now and don’t get out of touch with that power. Yield yourself to it—let it flow through you.
“Give your job all you’ve got. Of course you must do that. But do it in a relaxed and easy manner like a batter in a big-league ball game. He swings the bat easy-like, and doesn’t try to knock the ball out of the park. He just does the best he can and believes in himself because he knows that he has lots of reserve power.” Then he repeated the passage again. “‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.’”
That was a long time ago, but I never forgot that lesson. He taught me how to draw upon that Higher Power, and believe me, his suggestions worked. I continue to follow my friend’s advice, and it has never failed me in the more than twenty years that have passed since then. My life is crowded with activity but that power formula gives me all the strength I need.
A second method for drawing upon that Higher Power is to learn to take a positive, optimistic attitude toward every problem. In direct proportion to the intensity of the faith which you muster will you receive power to meet your situations. “According to your faith be it unto you,” (Matthew 9:29) is a basic law of successful living.
There is a Higher Power, and that Power can do everything for you. Draw upon it and experience its great helpfulness. Why be defeated when you are free to draw upon that Higher Power? State your problem. Ask for a specific answer. Believe that you are getting that answer. Believe that now, through God’s help, you are gaining power over your difficulty.
A man and his wife who were in real trouble came to see me. This gentleman, a former magazine editor, was a distinguished figure in music and artistic circles. Everyone liked him for his geniality and friendliness. His wife was held in similar high regard. She was in poor health and as a result they had retired to the country where they were living in semi-seclusion.
This man told me he had experienced two heart attacks, one quite severe. His wife was in a steady decline and he was deeply concerned about her. The question he put was this: “Can I get hold of some power that can help us recover ourselves physically and give us new hope and courage and strength?” The situation as he described it was a series of discouragements and defeats.
Frankly I felt that he was a bit too sophisticated to permit himself to adopt and utilize the simple trust that would be necessary if faith were to rehabilitate him. I told him I rather doubted he had the capacity to practice simple faith enough to open the sources of power according to the techniques of Christianity.
But he assured me he was in earnest and was open-minded and would follow any directions given. I saw his honesty and the real quality of his soul and have had a great affection for him ever since. I gave him a simple prescription. He was to read the New Testament and the Psalms until his mind was saturated with them. I gave him the usual suggestion of committing passages to memory. Principally I urged him to utilize the formula of putting his life in the hands of God, at the same time believing that God was filling him with power, and his wife also, and that the two of them were to believe unfalteringly that they were being guided in even the most commonplace details of their lives.
They were also to believe that in co-operation with their physician, whom I happened to know and admire, that the healing grace of Jesus Christ was being given them. I suggested that they picture the healing power of the Great Physician as already working within them.
Seldom have I seen two people who became more gloriously childlike in their faith and whose trust was more complete. They became enthusiastic about the Bible and would often telephone me about “some wonderful passage” they had just found. They gave me fresh insights into the truths of the Bible. It was a truly creative process working with this man and his wife.
The next spring Helen (that is the wife’s name) said, “I have never experienced a more wonderful springtime. The flowers this year are the loveliest I have ever seen, and have you noticed the sky with its extraordinary cloud formations and the delicate colors at dawn and sunset? The leaves seem greener this year, and I have never heard the birds sing with such ecstasy and melody.” When she said this there was an ecstatic light on her face and I knew she had been reborn in the spirit. And she began to improve physically, regaining a large share of her old-time strength. Her native creative power began to flow forth once again and life took on new meaning.
As for Horace, there has been no more heart trouble, and physical, mental, and spiritual vigor mark him as extraordinarily vital. They have moved into a new community and have become a center of its life. Wherever they go they touch people with a strange uplifting force.
What is the secret which they discovered? Simply that they learned to draw upon that Higher Power.
This Higher Power is one of the most amazing facts in human existence. I am awestruck, no matter how many times I have seen the phenomenon, by the thorough-going, tremendous, overwhelming changes for good that it accomplishes in the lives of people. Personally, I am so enthusiastic about all that the Higher Power can do for people that I am loath to bring this book to a close. I could recite story after story, incident after incident of those who by laying hold of this power have had a new birth of life.
This power is constantly available. If you open to it, it will rush in like a mighty tide. It is there for anybody under any circumstances or in any condition. This tremendous inflow of power is of such force that in its inrush it drives everything before it, casting out fear, hate, sickness, weakness, moral defeat, scattering them as though they had never touched you, refreshing and restrengthening your life with health, happiness, and goodness.
For many years I have been interested in the problem of the alcoholic and in the organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous. One of their basic principles is that before a person can be helped he must recognize that he is an alcoholic and that of himself he can do nothing; that he has no power within himself; that he is defeated. When he accepts this point of view he is in a position to receive help from other alcoholics and from the Higher Power—God.
Another principle is the willingness to depend upon the Higher Power from whom he derives a strength which he does not himself possess. The working of this power in men’s lives is the most moving and thrilling fact in this world. No other manifestation of power of any kind is equal to it. Materialistic power achievement is a romantic story. Men discover laws and formulas and harness power to do remarkable things. Spiritual power also follows laws. Mastery of these laws works wonders in an area more complicated than any form of mechanics, namely, human nature. It is one thing to make a machine work right. To make human nature work right is something else. It requires greater skill, but it can be done.
I sat one day under swaying palm trees in Florida listening to the story of a demonstration of Higher Power activity in the life of a man who narrowly escaped tragedy. He told me that he started drinking at the age of sixteen, “as it was the so-called smart thing to do.” After twenty-three years, beginning as a social drinker, he “came to the end of the road on April 24, 1947.” A growing hatred and bitterness toward his wife who had deserted him and toward his mother-in-law and sister-in-law culminated in his decision to kill these three women. I relate the story as he told it to me, in his own language.