Satisfied (Hallelujah! I have Found Him)

© Copyright 2013 PJ Stassen

All Rights Reserved

I realize from my earliest days I was encircled by music and by people who loved it.  The gospel songs were ever being sung in our home.

    -          George Beverly Shea.

   I can still vividly remember the day I posed the question to my mother: “Where do I come from?”  My mother was sitting in a chair and I must have been still very little, as I can clearly remember standing upright, clutching her knees through her kitchen apron.  I cannot, however, recall what her exact reply was, although I have a vague suspicion that she told me that I had been a little monkey in the mountains and that they caught and tamed me after a few weeks in captivity … the standard explanation in those days alongside the old worn-out cliché that babies are delivered by a stork (Isn’t it strange how nobody ever ask where the stork’s babies come from?).

   The very fact that we ask this kind of question obviously demonstrates our superiority to the animal kingdom.  Animals do not even know that they are going to die one day, much less where they originally had come from, and this curiosity may sometimes run the whole gamut of such vexing questions as:

·         Who am I?

·         Where do I come from?

·         Why am I here?

·         Why is there something (in the Universe) instead of nothing?

·         Where am I going?

·         What is my ultimate destination?

   This curiosity is not new. Man has been trying to explain and define his ‘origins’, ‘Creation’ and ‘God’ for centuries.  Even Charles Darwin endeavoured to write a book about it (from a ‘scientific’ angle in 1859) with a publication known as ‘The Origin of the Species and the Selection of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’, but failed miserably, for in it he never really addressed the origins of the species.  In fact, the book only served to demonstrate his probably racist worldview, for he apparently believed that the lighter-skinned races were superior to the darker-skinned races (Notice the racist slur in the title of the book: ‘… the Selection of Favoured Races …’).  Who are the 'favoured races'? It is anyway no secret today that Hitler had drawn his inspiration for the Nazis' Eugenics-programme from literature as these that had eventually led to the infamous Holocaust.   

   Perhaps the discerning reader will also have noticed that (i) the broad media seldom if ever quote the full title of Darwin’s book (in publications or during debates) but usually stick very selectively and very conveniently to just ‘The Origin of the Species’ (why?) and (ii) that there are no lighter-skinned ‘hominids’ in museum-exhibits or in atheist-evolutionist textbooks and encyclopaedias, only darker-skinned ‘prototypes’ (why?). 

   Nevertheless, people have, for instance, commented on the mystery of life as follows:       

·         The economy of Heaven is dark; and wisest clerks have missed the mark. (Charles Lamb, 1775-1834).

·         To know God better is only to realise more fully how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all.  I cannot tell which is more childish – to deny him, or to attempt to define him. (Samuel Butler, 1835-1902).

·         Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world. (Gautama Buddha, 560-480 B.C.).

·         Yes. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. (Ridgeon, The Doctor’s Dilemma: George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950).

·          A comprehended God is no God. (St. John Chrysostom, 345-407 A.D.).

   Even St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) has reportedly said: “Thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee … “ (Confessions: Preface, ix, S.A. Book 1, Chapter 1).  I can also still recall the emptiness of my own restless heart and my own youthful search for meaning during the early months of 1962 (see Post #1: Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross), and the year 1963 as a naïve fifteen-year old in a small Church in Randgate (South Africa), when, at last, it finally came to rest with, among others, the singing of this beautiful hymn (written by Clara Tear Williams) with the congregation:  

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Satisfied (Hallelujah! I Have Found Him)

(Clara Tear Williams, 1858-1937/Ralph E. Hudson, 1843-1901

(© 1968 by Singspiration, Inc. All Rights Reserved)

 All my life long I had panted

For a drink from some cool spring,

That I hoped would quench the burning

Of the thirst I felt within.

Feeding on the husks around me

Till my strength was almost gone,

Longed my soul for something better,

Only still to hunger on.

Poor was I and and sought for riches,

Something that would satisfy

But the dust that gathered round me

Only masked my soul’s sad cry.

CHORUS: Hallelujah! I have found Him —

Whom my soul so long has craved!

Jesus satisfies my longings;

Through His blood I now am saved.

Thank God for the humble Carpenter from Nazareth.

Piet Stassen

eLiterature/eLiteratuur:

1. Scribd Publishing Site:  www.scribd.com/PietStassen (ENGLISH & AFRIKAANS)
2. eBook: 'Evolution: The Science That Evolved Into A Fairy Tale' (ENGLISH)  
3. eBook:  'Bertrand Russell Revisited: Rebuttal Of Bertrand Russell's 'Why I Am Not A Christian''(ENGLISH)
4. eBook: 'Meditations & Contemplations: A Reader For Both Atheists And Creationists' (ENGLISH)
5. eBook: 'Conservation, Rhino Poaching And Hypocrisy' (ENGLISH)
6. eBook: 'Why Darwinism ('Evolution') Does Not Make Sense' (ENGLISH)
7. eBook: 'Names And Titles Of Jesus Of Nazareth (ENGLISH)'
8. eBoek:  'Darwin Of Christus: Suid-Afrikaners By 'n Kruispad!' [AFRIKAANS].
9. eBoek:  'Bevryding Van Die Anti-Evangelie Van Ateisme-Evolusionisme' [AFRIKAANS].
10. eBoek:  'Name & Titels Van Jesus Christus' [AFRIKAANS].
11. eTracts, Christian (Free, Downloadable):  Free, downloadable Christian eTracts for free distribution (ENGLISH)
12. eTraktate, Christelik (Gratis, Aflaaibaar): Gratis, aflaaibabre Christelike Traktate vir gratis verspreiding (AFRIKAANS)

Bibliography

1. Andrews, Allen (1969)  Quotations for Speakers and Writers. Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. England.  

2. Hymntime. Clara Tear Williams. Accessed At <http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/i/l/l/williams_ct.htm> [online] 2013
3.  Hymntime. Ralph E. Hudson. Accessed At <http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/b/l/e/blessedb.htm> [online] 2013.  
4.. St. Augustine (2004)  Confessions.  Hendrickson Christian Classics. Peabody, Massachusetts.