A devotion from Philip Brooks

God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

—Acts 17:27

Saint Paul is preaching on Mars Hill to the Athenians. We hear a great deal about the tact of that discourse. The power of his tact was really love. He felt for those people, so he said to them what they needed. Never were people on the brink of so many of the highest things—and missed them—as these Athenians. They felt all the mystery of life. They built their altar to the unknown god. They were always on the brink of faith, without believing; always touched by spirituality, yet with their feet set on the material and carnal.

Two views [could] be taken by one who looked on their darkness. Easy enough it is to be contemptuous; to condemn as frivolous this life that walked on the brink of earnestness and yet was never earnest. But it is possible to be impressed with reverence and pity that left no room for contempt, reverence for the people who came so near to so much and pity for the people who missed it so sadly. The second thought is the thought of the best and wisest and divinest—the thought of Saint Paul and of Jesus Christ.

What makes the difference between these two views? People who look on others’ puzzled lives with reverence and pity see God there behind the lives they are looking at. People who look at others’ restless lives with contempt see no God there, but [only] vain and aimless dissatisfaction. If there is no God, whose life and presence, dimly felt, is making people toss and complain, then their tossing and complaining is a contemptible thing. If there is a God to whom they belong, whom they feel through the thinnest of veils, whom they feel even when they do not know that it is he whom they feel—then their restlessness, their hope, their dreams and doubts become solemn and significant.

And this is just what Saint Paul tells the Athenians. He says, “You are restless and discontented. Your restlessness, your impatience, your discontent, however petty the forms it takes, is solemn and not petty to me, because of what it means. It means that God is not far from every one of you.”

Oh, what a revelation that was! What a preaching that was that day on Mars Hill!