AFTER WORLD WAR IL, my friends and I organized a former concentration (continued)
9. Toontje
IN HAARLEM, MY hometown, there was a minister who told me of a little boy who was feebleminded. His name was Toontje. He was always sitting in the front pew of the church. The minister said to his wife, "Toontje doesn't understand one word of my sermons. Nevertheless, he is so faithful—he comes every Sunday." . Once the pastor spoke of the ocean of God's love and told how we knew of it through Jesus Christ. When he was talking, he saw on Toontje's face an expression of great joy. Toontje understood when he talked about God's love. I myself worked among the feebleminded and I know from experience that you can never speak too much about the love of God.
The next day the pastor went to Toontje's home. He thought he would see if the boy still knew something of God's love. But when he arrived at Toontje's house, he heard that the boy had died in his sleep. The pastor told me that on Toontje's dead face was an expression of heavenly joy. "I believe," he said, "that Toontje tried to get too much of God's love into his heart, so that his heart just broke for joy." .
If you and I would also accept too much of God's love, our hearts could break for joy. But in heaven we shall have such strong hearts that they will contain much, much more of the love of God. Oh, what a joy that will be! Then we shall praise and thank Him for all He was and is and shall be, for us. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
We can only see a little of the ocean
when we stand at the rocky shore,
But out there, beyond the eye's horizon,
there's more—there's more!
We can only see a little of God's loving, a few rich samples of His mighty store, But out there, beyond the eye's horizon, there is more—there is more!
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
We can read in the Bible:
When I think of the greatness of this great plan, I fall on my knees before the Father from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name, and I pray that out of the glorious richness of his resources he will enable you to know the strength of the Spirit's inner reinforcement—that Christ may actually live in your hearts by your faith. And I pray that you, firmly fixed in love yourselves, may be able to grasp with all Christians how wide and deep and long and high is the love of Christ—and to know for yourselves that love so far beyond our comprehension. May you be filled through all your being with God himself! Now to him who by his power within us is able to do infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine—to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen!
Ephesians 3:14-21
(See PHILLIPS.)