March 9, 1930, the Missing Day from "Letters By A Modern Mystic," Dr. Frank C. Laubach, Fleming H. Revell Version, 1955/58
I may have referred you to Dr. Frank C. Laubach's book Letters By A Modern Mystic. I discovered Dr. Laubach in 1976. Getting ready for a retreat with Melodyland School of Theology, I stopped by the Melodyland Bookstore to find some small book to take with me. I chanced upon Open Windows, Swinging Doors: Personal Diary of Dr. Frank C. Laubach, which is G/L (Regal) Publications' version of Letters By A Modern Mystic.
Not many things have touched me as deeply and continuously as Laubachs' diary entry for March 9, 1930. I thought to read it again last night and grabbed Fleming H. Revell's version of the book (I’ve got them all--the one linked to above I think is the best). March 9 wasn't there. I checked throughout the book: March 9, 1930, is the only diary entry missing in the whole book. So if you purchased Letters By A Modern Mystic on my recommendation and incidentally wound up with Revell's version, here is the day you missed:
March 9, 1930 – Boundless joy broken loose
For the first time in my life I know what I must do off in lonesome Lanao. I know why God left this aching void, for himself to fill. Off on this mountain I must do three things:
1. I must pursue this voyage of discovery in quest of God's will. I must because the world needs me to do it.
2. I must plunge into mighty experiments in intercessory prayer, to test my hypothesis that God needs my help to do his will for others, and that my prayer releases his power. I must be his channel, for the world needs me.
3. I must confront these Moros with a divine love which will speak Christ to them though I never use his name. They must see God in me, and I must see God in them. Not to change the name of their religion, but to take their hand and say, "Come, let us look for God."
A few days ago as we came on the priests, they were praying, in one boat with thirty-five Moros, many of whom called to me to join. So I held out my hands and prayed with them, and as earnestly as any of them. One of them said "He is Islam," and I replied, "A friend of Islam."
My teacher, Dato Pambaya, told me this week that a good Muslim ought to utter the sacred word for God, every time he begins to do anything, to sleep, or walk, or work, or even turn around. A good Muslim would fill his life with God. I fear there are few good Muslims.
But so would a real Christlike Christian speak to God every time he did anything - and I fear there are few good Christians.
What right then have I or any other person to come here and change the name of these people from Muslim to Christian, unless I lead them to a life fuller of God than they have now? Clearly, clearly, my job here is not to go to the town plaza and make proselytes, it is to live wrapped in God, trembling to his thoughts, burning with his passion. And, my loved one, that is the best gift you can give to your own town.
I look up at this page and it is not red hot as my soul is now. It is black ink. It ought to be written with the red ribbon. You will not see the tears that are falling on this typewriter, tears of a boundless joy broken loose.
The most wonderful discovery that has ever come to me is that I do not have to wait until some future time for the glorious hour. I need not sing, “Oh that will be glory for me -” and wait for any grave. This hour can be heaven. Any hour for any body can be as rich as God! For do you not see that God is trying experiments with human lives. That is why there are so many of them. He has one billion seven hundred million experiments going on around the world at this moment. And His question is, “How far will this man and that woman allow allow me to carry this hour?” This Sunday afternoon at three o'clock He was asking it of us all. I do not know what the rest of you said, but as for me, I asked, “God, how wonderful dost Thou wish this hour alone with Thee to be?”
“It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever lived. For I who pushed life up through the protozon and the tiny grass, and the fish and the bird and the dog and the gorilla and the man, and who am reaching out toward divine sons, I have not become satisfied yet. I am not only willing to make this hour marvelous. I am in travail to set you akindle with the Christ-thing which has no name. How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?”
And I answered: “Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice. Catch me up in Thine arms and make this hour as terribly glorious as any human being ever lived, if Thou wilt.
“And God, I scarce see how one could live if his heart held more than mine has had from Thee this past two hours.”
Will they last? Ah, that is the question I must not ask. I shall just live this hour on until it is full, then step into the next hour. Neither tomorrow matters, nor yesterday. Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.
But how “practical” is this for the average man? It seems to me now that yonder plowman could be like Calixto Sanidad, when he was a lonesome and mistreated plowboy, “with my eyes on the furrow, and my hands on the lines, but my thoughts on God.” The carpenter could be as full of God as was Christ when he drove nails. The millions at looms and lathes could make the hours glorious. Some hour spent by some night watchman might be the most glorious ever lived on earth. God is not through yet. He is breaking through and I think the poor have less callousness for Him to overcome as a rule than have the rich.
On the other hand the rich man has the wonderful opportunity of paying a sacrifice which will cut his heart almost out. If he seeks the place where his wealth is needed most, then throws all he has into that cause and then throws himself into the cause with his money, as Jesus asked the rich young ruler to do, his money will at that moment be transmuted into the golden threads of heaven. Maybe there is another way, but to me there seems only a blank wall for wealthy men save through the doorway I have entered, a sacrifice that hurts and hurts and - behind Calvary, God!
Outside the sky is alight with golden sunset. To me that is God, working on the sky, as he has worked so wonderfully this afternoon within me.
Not many things have touched me as deeply and continuously as Laubachs' diary entry for March 9, 1930. I thought to read it again last night and grabbed Fleming H. Revell's version of the book (I’ve got them all--the one linked to above I think is the best). March 9 wasn't there. I checked throughout the book: March 9, 1930, is the only diary entry missing in the whole book. So if you purchased Letters By A Modern Mystic on my recommendation and incidentally wound up with Revell's version, here is the day you missed:
March 9, 1930 – Boundless joy broken loose
For the first time in my life I know what I must do off in lonesome Lanao. I know why God left this aching void, for himself to fill. Off on this mountain I must do three things:
1. I must pursue this voyage of discovery in quest of God's will. I must because the world needs me to do it.
2. I must plunge into mighty experiments in intercessory prayer, to test my hypothesis that God needs my help to do his will for others, and that my prayer releases his power. I must be his channel, for the world needs me.
3. I must confront these Moros with a divine love which will speak Christ to them though I never use his name. They must see God in me, and I must see God in them. Not to change the name of their religion, but to take their hand and say, "Come, let us look for God."
A few days ago as we came on the priests, they were praying, in one boat with thirty-five Moros, many of whom called to me to join. So I held out my hands and prayed with them, and as earnestly as any of them. One of them said "He is Islam," and I replied, "A friend of Islam."
My teacher, Dato Pambaya, told me this week that a good Muslim ought to utter the sacred word for God, every time he begins to do anything, to sleep, or walk, or work, or even turn around. A good Muslim would fill his life with God. I fear there are few good Muslims.
But so would a real Christlike Christian speak to God every time he did anything - and I fear there are few good Christians.
What right then have I or any other person to come here and change the name of these people from Muslim to Christian, unless I lead them to a life fuller of God than they have now? Clearly, clearly, my job here is not to go to the town plaza and make proselytes, it is to live wrapped in God, trembling to his thoughts, burning with his passion. And, my loved one, that is the best gift you can give to your own town.
I look up at this page and it is not red hot as my soul is now. It is black ink. It ought to be written with the red ribbon. You will not see the tears that are falling on this typewriter, tears of a boundless joy broken loose.
The most wonderful discovery that has ever come to me is that I do not have to wait until some future time for the glorious hour. I need not sing, “Oh that will be glory for me -” and wait for any grave. This hour can be heaven. Any hour for any body can be as rich as God! For do you not see that God is trying experiments with human lives. That is why there are so many of them. He has one billion seven hundred million experiments going on around the world at this moment. And His question is, “How far will this man and that woman allow allow me to carry this hour?” This Sunday afternoon at three o'clock He was asking it of us all. I do not know what the rest of you said, but as for me, I asked, “God, how wonderful dost Thou wish this hour alone with Thee to be?”
“It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever lived. For I who pushed life up through the protozon and the tiny grass, and the fish and the bird and the dog and the gorilla and the man, and who am reaching out toward divine sons, I have not become satisfied yet. I am not only willing to make this hour marvelous. I am in travail to set you akindle with the Christ-thing which has no name. How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?”
And I answered: “Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice. Catch me up in Thine arms and make this hour as terribly glorious as any human being ever lived, if Thou wilt.
“And God, I scarce see how one could live if his heart held more than mine has had from Thee this past two hours.”
Will they last? Ah, that is the question I must not ask. I shall just live this hour on until it is full, then step into the next hour. Neither tomorrow matters, nor yesterday. Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.
But how “practical” is this for the average man? It seems to me now that yonder plowman could be like Calixto Sanidad, when he was a lonesome and mistreated plowboy, “with my eyes on the furrow, and my hands on the lines, but my thoughts on God.” The carpenter could be as full of God as was Christ when he drove nails. The millions at looms and lathes could make the hours glorious. Some hour spent by some night watchman might be the most glorious ever lived on earth. God is not through yet. He is breaking through and I think the poor have less callousness for Him to overcome as a rule than have the rich.
On the other hand the rich man has the wonderful opportunity of paying a sacrifice which will cut his heart almost out. If he seeks the place where his wealth is needed most, then throws all he has into that cause and then throws himself into the cause with his money, as Jesus asked the rich young ruler to do, his money will at that moment be transmuted into the golden threads of heaven. Maybe there is another way, but to me there seems only a blank wall for wealthy men save through the doorway I have entered, a sacrifice that hurts and hurts and - behind Calvary, God!
Outside the sky is alight with golden sunset. To me that is God, working on the sky, as he has worked so wonderfully this afternoon within me.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
6:49 PM
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