We have a right to use any aid that proves useful. One such aid is to think of Christ as in a definite location. To be sure, He is a spirit, everywhere at once—and therefore anywhere we realize Him to be. Many of us win our game nearly all of some days by realizing His unseen presence sitting in a chair or walking beside us. Some of us have gazed at our favorite picture of Him until it floats before our memories whenever we glance at His unseen presence, and we almost see Him. Indeed, many of us do see Him in our dreams. Others, like St. Paul, like to feel Him within the breast; many, like St. Patrick, feel Him all around us, above, below, before, behind, as though we walked in His kindly halo. We may have our secret ways of helping us to realize that He is very near and very dear.
ON A TRAIN OR IN A CROWD
We whisper “God” or “Jesus” or “Christ” constantly as we glance at every person near us. We try to see double, as Christ does—we see the person as he is and the person Christ longs to make of him. Remarkable things happen, until those in tune look around as though you spoke— especially children. The atmosphere of a room changes when a few people keep whispering to Him about all the rest. Perhaps there is no finer ministry than just to be in meetings or crowds, whispering “Jesus,” and then helping people whenever you see an opportunity. When Dr. Chalmers answers the telephone he whispers: “A child of God will now speak to me.” We can do that when anybody speaks to us.
If everybody in America would do the things just described above, we should have a “heaven below.” This is not pious poetry. We have seen what happens. Try it during all this week, until a strange power develops within you. As messages from England are broadcast in Long Island for all America, so we can become spiritual broadcasters for Christ. Every cell in our brain is an electric battery which He can use to intensify what He longs to say to people who are spiritually too deaf to hear Him without our help.
WHILE IN CONVERSATION
Suppose when you reach home you find a group of friends engaged in ordinary conversation. Can you remember God at least once every minute? This is hard, but we have found that we can be successful if we employ some reminders. Here are aids which have proven useful:
- Have a picture of Christ in front of you where you can glance at it frequently.
- Have an empty chair beside you and imagine that your Unseen Master is sitting in it; if possible reach your hand and touch that chair, as though holding His hand. He is there, for He said: “Lo, I am with you always.”
- Keep humming to yourself a favorite prayer hymn-for example, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord, Have Thine Own Way.”
- Silently pray for each person in the circle.
- Keep whispering inside: “Lord, put Thy thoughts in my mind. Tell me what to say.”
- Best of all, tell your companions about the “Game with Minutes.” If they are interested, you will have no more trouble. You cannot keep God unless you give Him to others.
WHEN AT THE TABLE
All the previous suggestions are useful at mealtime. If possible, have an empty chair for your Invisible Guest, who said, “Wherever two or three are gathered together, I am in the midst.” Another useful aid is to recall what the Quakers believe about every meal. Jesus told us: “Eat this in remembrance of me.” They think that He meant, not only consecrated bread, but all food, so that every mouthful is His “body broken for you.”
You might read and discuss this booklet. It helps immediately if others at the table agree to try to win this mealtime together.
WHILE READING A BOOK
When we are reading a newspaper or magazine or book, we read it to Him! We often glance at the empty chair where we visualize Him, or at His picture and continue a running conversation with Him inwardly about the pages we are reading. Kagawa says scientific books are letters from God telling how He runs His universe.
Have you ever opened a letter and read it with Jesus, realizing that He smiles with us at the fun, rejoices with us in the successes, and weeps with us at life’s tragedies? If not, you have missed one of life’s sweetest experiences.
WHEN THINKING
If you lean back and think about some problem deeply, how can you remember God? You can do it by forming a new habit. All thought employs silent words and is really conversation with your inner self. Instead of talking to yourself, you will now form the habit of talking to Christ. Many of us who have tried this have found that we think so much better that we never want to try to think without Him again. We are helped if we imagine Him sitting in a chair beside us, talking with us. We say with our tongue what we think Christ might say in reply to our questions. Thus we consult Christ about everything. No practice we have ever found has held our thinking so uniformly high and wholesome as this making all thought a conversation with God. When evil thoughts of any kind come, we say, “Lord, these thoughts are not fit to discuss with Thee. Think Thy thoughts in my mind.” The result is an instantaneous purification.
WHEN WALKING ALONE
If you are strolling out of doors alone, you can recall God at least once every minute with no effort, if you remember that “beauty is the voice of God.” Every flower and tree, river and lake, mountain and sunset, is God speaking. “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears all nature sings …” So as you look at each lovely thing, you may keep asking: “Dear Father, what are you telling me through this, and this, and this?”
If you have wandered to a place where you can talk aloud without being overheard, you may speak to the Invisible Companion inside you or beside you. Ask Him what is most on His heart and then answer back aloud with your voice what you believe God would reply to you.
Of course we are not always sure whether we have guessed God’s answer right, but it is surprising how much of the time we are very certain. It really is not necessary to be sure that our answer is right, for the answer is not the great thing—He is! God is infinitely more important than His advice or His gifts; indeed, He, himself, is the great gift. The youth in love does not so much prize what his sweetheart may say or may give him, as the fact that she is his and that she is here. The most precious privilege in talking with God is this intimacy which we can have with Him. We may have a glorious succession of heavenly minutes. How foolish people are to lose life’s most poignant joy, seeing it may be had while taking a walk alone!
But the most wonderful discovery of all is, to use the words of St. Paul, “Christ liveth in me.” He dwells in us, walks in our minds, reaches out through our hands, speaks with our voices, if we obey his every whisper.
