blessings of creation to bestow should deprive me of anything just
because in my folly or weakness I have committed sins is not consistent
with "his great name's sake." It would not be causing His sun to rise on
the wicked as well as on the good nor sending rain on those who do right
and those who do wrong. I am too small for His immensity to crush with
its punishments, but not too small to be the object of His entire love.



XVIII


I hope it is plain that I say this not to make little of doing wrong but
to put the love and fulness of God in the dominating place. I must make
it clear to myself that He does not shut me out of His heart because I
am guilty of sins. I may shut myself out of His heart, unless I direct
my mind rightly; but He is always there, unchanged, unchangeable, the
ever-loving, ever-welcoming Father. Whatever I have done I can return to
Him with the knowledge that He will take me back. Far from sure of
myself, I can always be sure of Him.

There are those who would warn me against saying this through fear lest
it should be interpreted as, "Don't be afraid to sin so long as you keep
mentally close to God." I prefer to run that risk. The dread figure of
"an angry God" has been so worked to terrorise men that large numbers of
us have been terrorised. But experience shows us every day that being
terrorised never produces the results at which it aims. It does not win
us; it drives us away.

Much of the alienation from God in the mind of to-day is due to