I make no apology for this book. It is the result of an urge which has been pulling at my heart for a long time. It has come as the result of observations made over a period of years during which I have been greatly privileged to contact hearts and lives at most vital points. During my ministry as teacher in public schools, pastor of churches, teacher in two Bible Schools, and teacher and lecturer before congregations in camp meetings, Bible conferences, conventions, forums and classes, I have been greatly encouraged to find a hunger and desire on the part of many Christians for a deeper and fuller meaning to life. The forms in which this hunger manifests itself are rather technical and not to be discussed now. We will start with this established fact that on the part of many Christians there is at the center a longing and deep hunger for God and spiritual reality. This elemental desire is also in my heart and is the common bond of spiritual fellowship and mutual understanding.

I have also found that in the reaching out for God and exploration of fields for spiritual fellowship we have all met with opposition, frustration and sometimes abject failure. This reaction usually begins a series of questions. If Christianity is such a wonderful life, is so necessary, and if God is almighty and loves us, why, why, and again why? These questions usually fall into groups and may be classified under different headings according to type of difficulty. Had I time here, I think I could help you with a few, but I wish rather to deal with questions in a general way. More interesting than the questions are the dear souls who ask them. Here too, the people may be classified as to type and need. Human hearts hungry for the Infinite! The outer and more articulate voice calling in a wilderness of natural disorder, sounding from a region of human need best likened to “Deep calling to deep” (Psa. 42:7).

For years my work has been among students who not only desired to work out a Christian philosophy for life from the standpoint of theory, but who have also sought to discover a system for practical application. Here is where I wish to help you-at fundamentals and with basic questions which should have due attention at the beginning and not after a soul is overwhelmed or too near defeat.

In helping you I do not come offering some new and magic panacea for life. I have no new philosophy or creed for living. However, here are some fragments of truth which have helped me. They are like segments of an arc high circling over my life. As I have needed truth, God patiently let light ( only fragmentary bits) shine down from the perfect Arc-the Christ-into my heart and life. These flashes of truth I desire to share with you. The truth I bring is not mine. It is His. Truth is never original with anyone. There may be a multiplicity of forms, patterns, designs and methods for its presentation and interpretation, but it is never original with anybody. No church, no person, no creed, no sect or group, has a comer on truth. It is just too big. It is universal, absolute and final. It finds perfect embodiment in Christ for in Him it became personified. Who contacts Christ contacts truth. So we are safe in taking His Word as our guide. All of us need fresh revelations of truth as we pass through different cycles of spiritual evolution and development. Each new cycle calls for a new revelation of truth and inner manifestation of the Christ as the peculiar need may demand. “Give us this day our daily bread.” “Feed me with food convenient for me.”

For a moment let us glance at the fields from whence these needs arise. If we could spend a little time here in analysis of man, first as regards personality and second as a human being, we might clear up some hangovers and tie down the fringes of loose thinking. As viewed from either standpoint-personality or being-he is a trinity; so there will naturally be a large field from which to find difficulties calling, questions arising, and needs to be supplied. That is why it is so safe to let Christ come into the life and do with such infinite wisdom, patience, love, understanding and grace, what no psychiatrist can do with less skillful hands.

Christ still employs the methods He used when He helped broken lives and hearts two thousand years ago. Have you not thrilled to watch Him move through the Gospels to see how He meets a situation, or note His approach and His reaction to different propositions, suggestions and problems? Study Him and love Him as the great Teacher. Not only did He come to redeem man, but to teach him how to live. Only it seems that people want to do everything else but live. You know it is easier to do than to be.

Usually the real needs are not so apparent on the surface, but are lodged in more hidden or forgotten strata of life. Too often they are left untouched and unnoticed until tragedy, misfit, or overwhelming frustration ( often in some physical or material form) arouses the soul to consciousness of a need and trouble. God has a way of getting at the deeper and more serious need by discovering to us some surface or local need or disturbance. In His method of revelation of our need He is tactful according to the nature and temperament of the one concerned. He does not always make direct attack. And in His application of truth and help He is correspondingly as delicate and yet forceful. The story of the prodigal son is enacted every day in fresh form. The lad, you remember, was acutely conscious of a need-a local, physical one too-a hungry stomach. But God was after a deep-seated spiritual need-a general overhauling and self revelation to the lad. God reached the basic need by way of a physical distress. The patient and tactful God! Many today could testify to the fact that the first vital contact and revelation of truth have come by way of sickness, physical distress, frustrations calling from the devastated fields of human disorder. We are on a holy quest for truth, and life affords a series of crises in which we may make a choice for God and this opens up new doors for light and truth. Learn how to interpret these crises and let us move on in God.

Naturally, in dealing with lives, I have had to do some very personal work, enter into sacred places of the heart, look upon life unmasked, tread softly over graves where lost hopes and broken dreams lie sleeping, touch tenderly the wounds where healing ( real healing) was so very much needed but could not come because of a scab of defense mechanism which the overwhelmed ego had set up. Again I have gone into the sunny atmosphere of faith where hearts sang to me their hopes all drenched in the ethereal light of first love. Or, it may be I have shared the ambitions and hopes still vibrating between two very hard words to learn-possibility and probability. And again to share the most delicate of spiritual revelations and vibrations of the inner heart quite inarticulate to the limitations of the human but perfectly and refreshingly discerned in the realm of the spirit. The field has been varied and the range general.

But in writing this book I must retire from that field-direct contact and actual experience. I must not remain too concerned with the immediate, local and acute. I must move from cause to effect. When I stand back far enough and look, I see a general array of trouble, misfits, sins, unbelief, maladjustments, inhibition, heredity, complexes, hangovers, perversions, frustrations, pain and all the other what-nots. And I still have HOPE. It is into such a field that the Holy Spirit delights to move. Did He not in the beginning bring creation out of chaos! Remember, God is still creating. I shall try to keep the teaching in most simple form avoiding terminology or phraseology which might hinder a seeker rather than help him. I want to help you where you are and in a most practical way. As a rule I find the difficulties of the average Christian are a result of not having given careful thought to some of the most elemental and basic things pertaining to the spiritual life. Usually these issues were never prayed through so that there was clear direction and focusing of purpose. The thinking too many times was lazy and hazy, so there was failure to properly discriminate between issues and items involved.

Many times an overwhelming emotional impulse or reaction had given place to the more essential spiritual pivoting of the life with sane, spiritual understanding of the same. So many, many times I have had to lead a needy, disillusioned soul ( one who has come to himseH) back, past any number of experiences, good, blest, bad and indifferent, to the point in the beginning where the failure was lodged.

In this book I shall not analyze the difficulties and prescribe a way of deliverance. I desire rather to acquaint you with some basic purposes, objectives, laws, methods and dynamics which I find involved in this wonderful venture called Christian living.

At the very beginning let us have a few things clearly understood. I am dealing with Christians and not sinners. I am trying to help Christians who are reaching out for a more abundant life in Christ. That does not mean that a sinner may not be helped. Let us remember that truth has a revolutionary aspect. Your Christian life and general system of thought may need correction and tuning up by a definite acceptance and application of the truth as found in Christ. Truth will not rob or destroy any other truth you already hold. However, truth does upset, disturb and unmask traditions which are not scriptural, religious habits ( of natural religious type), notions, errors, and much that often accrue to the Christian in his venture and seeking of life. Many times the new life has a hard time breaking through dogma ( where it is unsafe and unnecessary), religious habits and forms. I call these husks of unreality which becloud and hinder the radiance of divine truth. So if at times you feel some items, such as mistaken ideas and notions, getting “jittery”, be brave, and embrace the truth at any cost and let the rest go into eclipse. Do not try to re-establish them again. The precious, life-giving truth is what we are after.

We all move under the power of some philosophy of life. We are so made. It may be simple and almost inarticulate, but it is there. It may be so ethereal and other world minded that it has no practical application. It may be very idealistic and lack proper dynamics for outworking. We all have some kind of philosophy, so it pays to know what it is. Christ, in His matchless love and interest offers us a field of ultimate truth from which we may deduce an adequate and workable philosophy. But please remember, that one must pay the price, meet the requirements and accept the discipline required in the curriculum of the school of the Holy Spirit. Christianity is not a philosophy—it is a life.

I sometimes feel like a recruiting officer. I am seeking Christians who are willing to offer themselves as candidates for this glorious life. The new creation is made for the highest and most spiritual life heaven can afford.