| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 18 |
Page 4 |
Another of the unsuspected perils of “no changes” is in the lessening of our independence upon God. While all things go well with us, and there are no breaks in the flow of favors, we are apt to forget that all our good gifts come from our Father’s hand. It is a sad hour in any life when consciousness of the need of God fades out of it. It seems pleasant to be able to go on, making plans of our own, and carrying them out without check or defeat. We like to be victorious. We like to say that we are masters of our circumstances, which we make all things serve us, that we turn obstacles into stepping-stones, climbing continually upward upon them. But a little thought would show the peril that hides in this having always one’s own way. It is not our own will, but God’s that leads to perfect character and to be blessedness. Unless therefore, we are doing always God’s will, filling out his plan for our life, the unbroken-ness of prosperity is not an unmixed good.
Most of us need to be baffled oftentimes in our schemes, to be defeated in our projects, to have our plans fail, to be compelled to yield to a stronger will. In no other way can the sense of dependence and of obligation be kept warm in the heart. If we always get our own way, we are apt, being human, to grow willful, proud, and rebellious.
Quiet trust in God and un-serving obedience and submission to his will can be learned at least by most of us only through long discipline and much thwarting of our own will. It is a sore misfortune to any of us if in having our own way we forget God and cease to love and follow Christ. Says Archdeacon Farrar – and we would better read the words twice: “God’s judgements – it may be the very sternest and most irremediable of them – come, many a time, in the guise, not of affliction, but of immense earthly prosperity and ease.”
Another unsuspected peril of prosperity lies in its easy circumstances, which make toil and severe exertion necessary. It is the young who are most exposed to this danger. They are not required to work to provide for themselves. All that they need comes to them without effort of their own. Such young people are envied by those of their companions and neighbors who have to work hard to earn their own bread and to win whatever opportunities for improvement they may gain. The latter do not suspect that there is any peril lurking in the easy condition of those they envy. They suppose it is in their own poverty and hardship, and in the necessity in their life for pinching economy and unceasing toil. They do not dream that theirs is really the safer condition, that there is a blessing in work and self-denial and care, and that there is always danger in ease and luxury.
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