There is an inky shadow over the home of God. There is a sharp pain tugging at the heart of God. It's a family matter; a family disgrace. One of God's family has gone off from the home circle and made a bad mess of things. Such an affair is always a source of great grief, especially where the family is an old one, with fine blood. And here the family is of the oldest, and the blood the best. The Father feels the sharp edge of the knife of disgrace very keenly. The hearth fire of God is lonely for the one gone away.

All of that Father's great love and rare wisdom have centered and blended on a plan for winning the estranged member of His family back home, of his own free glad accord. The other members of His family have gazed with awe-touched faces upon the marvels of that plan. Its tenderness, its depth, its wondrous love-wisdom have excited their deepest admiration while they watch breathlessly to see the outcome.

That prodigal is our own splendid planet. Some of us down here have gladly welcomed the Father's plan and the Father's Son. His Son is His plan. But most of us don't seem to understand the Father. And that is hard on Him. And the greater number of us, by far the greater number, haven't even heard of the Father's plan or of His Son, and have lost the memory of His loving voice calling. He is always calling. And everyone hears that calling voice. But very many do not recognize it as the Father's.

In great tenderness the Father's plan for winning all includes the help of those already won. Through His Son first, and then through His sons, newborn, reborn, He is reaching out His warm, eager hand to all. He breathed His own Spirit upon His Son. He breathes that same Spirit upon each of us who will, that so we may, each of us, touch all the others with the touch of God.

Five great touches of God there are, each charged with a mighty current of power. The fragrant life-touch, the musical voice-touch, the warm service-touch, the potent golden-touch, the secret, subtle prayer-touch. The first three of these are limited to a narrow circle, the circle of the immediate personality. The last two are limitless. They are like our own spirits. They reach directly, resistlessly, clear out through the personal circle as far as the spirit reaches, even around the whole circle of the planet.

Just now for a little while we want to talk together about one of these, the potent yellow golden-touch. The word service has been thought of quite commonly as referring to certain restricted things that one may do for another. It has a broader meaning too. Whatever we do to help another is service. Not merely the direct activities, but praying and giving are service of most potent influence. Money supplies a channel through which one may reach most intimately to others, near by and around the world. It is the golden channel of service.