Christian Resignation
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it.*’ — Psalm xxxix. 9.
Ct“T WAS dumb because Thou didst it” — I because the calamity was sent by Infinite Love. And so Christian resignation is not despair but hope! I have been all wrong in my view of it! I thought it was prostration; I see it is energy. I thought it was the heart sleeping; I see it is the heart on the wing. I see that the glory of the Psalmist’s resignation is not his speechlessness; it is the reason for his speechlessness.” I opened not my mouth because Thou didst it.’’ It is a very easy thing to be dumb in the experience of suffering; I think it is the easiest of all things. The most common effect of grief is a paralysing one. But Christian resignation is the absence of paralysis. It comes not from loss of power, but from the influx of power.
It is not the submission to a cross; it is the submission to a crown. It is not the wearing of a thorn; it is the wearing of a flower. It is not the crushing of a will; it is the birth of a fresh willingness. Not because I am a poor creature does Christ bid me be resigned; it is because I am a rich creature, with the hope of treasures untold. “Because Thou didst it” — because the shadow is a bit of the sun, because the seeming discord is the weaving of a melody, because the calamity is the disguise of love!
Lord, teach me the meaning of a resigned heart! Men tell me it means ‘’ to give up human love.” Teach me that it comes through the stimulus to human love! Why dost Thou bid me dry my tears? Is it the command to accept my pain? No, it is the command to reject it, to repudiate it, to disbelieve in it. It is the command to believe that, seen from other skies, my calamity wears another colour, a brighter colour. Be mine that resignation, O Lord! I would not be dumb through despair, as the Buddhist is. I would not he dumb throuth aiiathv, as the Stoic it. I would not be dumb through satiety, as the WorldHng is. I would not be dumb through witheredness, as the Cynic is. I would not be dumb by having my heart emptied in any form. I would be dumb by having my heart quickened, deepened. Many can say to my soul, ‘’ Peace, be still!” but Thou alone canst say it without killing the life. I refuse to be resigned except througH Thee. I will not be content to suffer wrong; but I will be content to wait for the right. I will bear if ThoiL didst it. I will not bear if Pilate did it, if Herod did it, if Caiaphas did it, if chance or accident or fortune did it. I yield, not to loss, but to love. I surrender, not to despair, but to hope. I bend, not to the yesterday, but to the morrow. I still the tempest of my heart, not in the presence of the waters, but in the presence of the rainbow. I cease to cry, not because I accept the night, but because I see the star. I fold my hands to no calamity, but to the wings of the coming morning. If my heart is stayed, it is stayed only in Theel