Article September 6, 1975 Issue

God's Outstretched Hand

HELEN G. HASLER

While visiting in the home of my Japanese friend, I slid a window to one side, wanting to get a better view of the cherry trees that were in bloom. Somehow I could not slide it back in place, so my friend came to help me. I stepped back out of the way, not realizing a steep stairwell was directly behind me, and began to fall. My friend extended her hand to mine. I grasped it, and she helped me back to safety.

Even closer than a friend's hand is the hand of our Father-Mother God. How comforting it is to know that we can never be beyond His outstretched hand, never out of His sight, His love, His tender, watchful care! The Psalmist sang, "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."^{Ps. 139:9, 10;}

Are we always ready to reach out and take the Father's hand? Sometimes it seems a difficult thing to do. Adjusting and planning things in our own way often appears in the guise of good, obstructing our path upward. Human will is not divine; it pushes. Knowing that each of God's children is upheld by His hand, governed by Him, is the divine way. Willingness to let God direct our lives and the lives of others takes discipline. Certainly it takes thinking—God-oriented thinking.

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