Rhythm seems to characterize all life as we know it. The tide ebbs and flows; day succeeds night, and night day; the seasons follow in rotation; storm and calm, sunshine and shower, cold and heat alternate. Rhythm accompanies all motion.
“Win first, lose last,” was a saying among schoolboys playing at marbles. Fashions in thought as well as in ladies’ dresses come and go, and come again. It is not good for man to be alone, but it is even less good for man never to be alone. All athletes know what “bad times” are; but they know too that these pass and are followed by a new lease of physical energy. Every political partisan is ready to plead the “swing of the pendulum” after an adverse election. Life is not uniform anywhere.
The Divine Library was not produced in a uniform way. It was here a little, and there a little. God spoke “at sundry times and in divers manners.” Men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The burden of the Lord came upon the prophets, the message was delivered, and when it had fulfilled, its immediate purpose was followed later by another communication of divine truth.
The Church all down the ages has had it’s times of prosperity and it’s times of adversity. The movements of the Spirit of God have not been uniform. Periods when things spiritual have been at a low ebb have been followed by times of revival. We may think we know the causes of revivals, but the mysterious element is never absent: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth” (Jn. 3:8).
The Christian life is marked by rhythm. It is made up of trusting and toiling; believing and fighting; resting and wrestling; bearing and doing. We must be both conservative and progressive. There are setbacks, or rather pauses, and these are followed by times of spiritual quickening. There are seasons when the mind is receptive; these are followed by seasons of mental creativeness. Sometimes the passive element in the soul predominates; at other times the active element.
The mystics spoke of “the dark night of the soul,” which was followed by a period of settled peace and joy in God. God and spiritual things are not always equally real to us. Apart altogether from sin, hours of joy in God do not last; they come, and go, and come again
In this world, the soul needs pauses as the body needs rest and sleep. God’s withdrawals are sometimes a mercy, and both ebb and flow are under His control. We cannot endure too much sunshine; we need the shadow as well. The valley experience is required as well as that of the mountain top, Depression as well as exhilaration has its uses. The undulations of life are God’s law of alternation.
All this is what we do not know in youth; and in riper years we need still to learn the lesson. The young make demands upon life which it was never meant to satisfy. When winter comes, they forget that spring cannot be far behind. The fact is that in this life it is almost impossible to be very unhappy for any great length of time. An enlarged outlook is a solace and a strength.
“Man was made for joy and woe
And when this we rightly know
Safely through the world we go.”