ESTRANGEMENT AND RECONCILIATION

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps.”  (Psalm 137:1-2)

Methodist missionary and evangelist E. Stanley Jones once wrote of a time early in his Christian experience. “For months after my conversion,” he wrote, “I was running under cloudless skies. And then suddenly I tripped, almost fell, pulled back this side of sin, but was shaken and humiliated that I could come that close to sin. I thought I was emancipated and found I wasn’t.”

Then he goes on to tell of the effort of special friends in his small group who played an intercessory role: “I went to the class meeting -- I’m grateful that I didn’t stay away -- went, but my (spiritual) music had gone. I had hung my harp on a weeping willow tree. As the others spoke of their joys and victories of the week, I sat there with the tears rolling down my cheeks. I was heartbroken. After the others had spoken, John Zink, the class leader, said, ‘Now, Stanley, tell us what is the matter.’ I told them I couldn’t, but would they please pray for me? Like one man they fell to their knees, and they lifted me back to the bosom of God by faith and love. When we got up from our knees, I was reconciled. The universe opened its arms and took me in again. The estrangement was gone. I took my heart from the willow tree and began to sing again…”

-- E. Stanley Jones in “A Song of Ascents”


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