The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
The German measles are going around. They have reached us here. It brings me back to my younger days. How well I can remember the lot of fussing we used to get from mother when any of us was ill. We all loved it. Taking the measles has its good points, it means no school. There’s the fun of lying in bed with the wireless by your side and nobody to say: ‘Turn that thing off and get on with your lessons.’ There are the nice cooling drinks. But suppose the measles come when you are planning a day at the seaside with the annual excursion? There’s the rub. Didn’t somebody say that there was no such thing as an unmixed blessing?
Take the weather. It all depends on what you are doing, I suppose, what choice of weather you want. When we are on holidays we want plenty of sunshine. At the very same time the farmers may be crying out for rain. It must be terribly hard for God to know what to do sometimes, with one set of people asking for rain and the other set praying to keep it away.
There is a story about a little negro boy who had been taught to ask God for help in any time of need and who did so. When the day of the school sports came round he put all he knew into the effort to win the 100 yard race. The spectators saw his lips moving and as he passed between them where they lined the course along which he was pounding, one of them heard what he was saying. It was, ‘Lord, if you’ll pick em up, I’ll put ‘em down.’
That reminds me of another young fellow who was evacuated to Wales during the war and was in a home where he was taught to say his prayers. Going to school one day, some minutes later than he should have been, he began to run, saying over and over again as he ran: ‘Please God, don’t let me be late.’ Suddenly he stumbled and fell, and picking himself up slowly, he muttered, ‘But you needn’t push me.’
It is a good thing to pray but we have to learn to be unselfish in our prayers. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He used the words, ‘us’ and ‘ours’; not ‘me’ and ‘mine’. I think that’s why sometimes we say: ‘Oh, there isn’t any use in praying. I prayed for something and didn’t get it.’ Don’t ask me why we don’t all get what we want just when we ask for it. I do know that sometimes my youngsters have asked me for things which they wanted badly enough and didn’t get. I knew better than they did what was good for them. Maybe that’s how it is with God.
Woodbine Willie, as he was familiarly called during the First World War, once said to the soldiers.” The first prayer I want my son to learn to say for me is not ‘God keep daddy safe’ but ‘God make daddy brave, and if he has hard things to do’ make him strong to do them.’
I had to leave one of my lads in hospital once. He was terribly upset when the nurse took him away. So was I, though he didn’t know it. How could a small child understand his father’s purpose? One thing I do know, and never forget, is that this is God’s world and sometimes I think I hear the Master saying what He once said to His disciples: ‘Why are you afraid like this?’ In God’s world there is really nothing to fear when we learn to trust Him.
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