Editorial November 7, 1977 Issue

Getting Along with God

Nathan A. Talbot

Do you sometimes have problems getting along with your parents—or a teacher or even "good friends"? Well, then, you're not much different from the rest of us. If we're honest about it, we would probably admit that from time to time most of us are faced with the need to untangle and straighten out our relationships with other people. Paul saw the need to admonish, "Do all things without murmurings and disputings."^{ Phil. 2:14;}

There are two ways to approach this challenge. Our emphasis can rest on a personal effort to change the other individual, or our emphasis can be placed on doing something about our own relationship with God. Too often—at least in our initial effort—we choose the first approach. Or, at the most, we may ask God to straighten out the other person.

The first approach is based on the assumption that there is something wrong between you and the other person. But that's not really the heart of the problem. The differences, the arguments, the disrespect—every aspect of the difficulty—would try to draw you away from God and fasten your thought on the other person. This is a very deceptive practice of mortal mind. Drawing thought away from its true need is a phase of animal magnetism. This clever deception would pull or attract your thought away from God as the central point of your life.

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