The Discipline of Change
Hugh Black, M. A. Psalm 55:19 God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that stays of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. The natural heart of man longs for peace, and looks to repose as fit and proper. We feel ourselves in the midst of ceaseless change and decay, and are always seeking a centre of rest. We would hasten our escape from the windy storm and tempest. Yet, with all our longing for peace, we are played on by forces that make for change and unrest, swirled by the ceaseless flux and flow of the tide. Life is like the swift ships, says Job, like ships driven out in the darkness, tossed on the storm, battling on to a quiet harbour. It is like vapour of the hills, says St. James, like the fragile mist that can be withered by sun or torn by wind. There is no real rest in the world for body, or mind, or heart, of soul. This condition of unstable equilibrium is, of course, most evident in connection with outward things in our life, the trappings and the circumstances. But the same transiency is seen in inward things also. Even love suffers loss, as the objects of love pass off at the dread call of night. Even faith cannot remain fixed, but has new problems which demand new efforts at adjustment. We must admit also, if we are honest with ourselves, that we need the stimulus of constant change if life is to attain its best results. We settle down in slothful ease and sluggish indifference, with eyes blinded and hearts made fat by the prosperity that knows no fear. Changelessness would only lull the senses and the faculties to sleep. We are only kept alert by the unstable tenure with which we hold life and all it contains. If we knew we would only meet the expected and always at the expected turn or road, there could be no expectation at all, no wonder, no apprehension, no fear, no hope, no faith. Experience could bring no education, and all our powers would be atrophied. Most of all is this true in the moral sphere. It is in no lotus isle that men are bred. In the stress and strain of life character is formed. Through doubt and uncertainty and sore trial of faith is faith alone made perfect. As a matter of fact, degeneracy has always set in with both nations and men when prosperity has been unchecked and the sunshine of favour has been unalloyed. It is through the conquest of nature, and through the conquest of enemies, and through self-conquest that the conquering peoples have been built. The lesson is painted on a large canvas in universal history; and it is repeated to us in miniature in individual experience. Men live only by custom and convention when they are withdrawn from this discipline of change; and to live only by custom is to be drugged by an opiate. Everything that makes men great partakes of the discipline. There is no music in a monotone; there is no are in one universal drab colour. Thought is born of mystery. Science is the daughter of wonder, and wonder is the fruit of all the changes and movements of the world. Religion even has her secure empire in the hearts of men through the needs of men's hearts, the need for which they crave of a changeless centre in the midst of change. Every deep crisis of life, with its thrill of joy or its spasm of sorrow, with its message, of loss or of gain, is part of God's higher education. The discipline of change is meant to drive us out beyond the changing hour to the thought of eternity, out from the restless things of sense to find rest in God. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, the same in nature, in character, in love, even as Jesus revealed Him, the eternal Father who yearns over His children in deathless love. "Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God." If that is failure, even though it means continual peace and prosperity, what shall we say of the failure of those who know the desolation and terror of change and yet have not learned; who still cling to the things of sense that have failed them before; who have suffered all the strokes of fortune, all the pangs Of heart, all the shocks that paralyze the soul, and yet have never submitted, never trusted, never feared, never loved God? What failure is like that of those who have been chastened and yet never softened, who have gone through the fire without learning the lesson, who have tasted the sorrow without the sympathy, who have borne the cross without the love? (Hugh Black, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. WEB: God, who is enthroned forever, will hear, and answer them. Selah. They never change, who don't fear God.