The Changeless God Through Loss and Aging

ALMIGHTY GOD, we cry unto Thee, as did the men of old; for our wants, our woes, our weariness, our hopes, our joys, are much to us. For the change of outward things has touched but little the human soul; and if sacrifices have passed away for us, and the Priest no longer is with us, still the soul cries out to know whether we are friendly with God, and whether there is a way open for the soul of Man to the Holiest of all.

Almighty God! Thou hast ordered our life wisely and well, but we see it not always. Thou hast given us a time of such gladness in this old earth that we cry aloud at Thy bounty, and then the things that change—and we change more than the things that change—make us cry out as did he of old, "I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." Lord God! there be times when we thank Thee for all things, when life is good and time is lovely, and the world is fair and things are as the soul would have them.

And yet, Lord God! when we come to take our ease, seeming to think this is our abiding-place, again there sounds the knell of change and we must arise and go; and so we must pass on, even unto death.

And now we ask wisdom, that, knowing these things, we may face them, work under them, and, if we learn not at least to love them, nevertheless may learn to be obedient and faithful; and in the changes that come over us and in time of trouble, Lord God! make us wise enough to look on them, and if we cannot look on them and love them, yet graciously give us patience to sit down under their burden.

All things suffer change, and we, Lord, must suffer the greatest; and as day by day these changes come and make us turn with more passionate desire to the changeless God; as the friends of our youth fast pass away, and the band that remains is very small; as old lovers depart and we find it hard to make new friends, for the uprooted tree is hard to root again; as we find things that were once familiar to us have grown strange, and the place of our childhood is altered and we hardly know it, bearing the same name but no longer to us the same; as all these outward changes are upon us, O Lord! we turn to Thee and behold no change!

Lord! make us wise, beneath the changes of religion and creed and sect, beneath the changes of law and institutions and the outward face of things, to see often in the human heart the same old loves and desires, the same passions, the same principles, and to hear the same prayers; and, looking often at that sameness, may we turn unto Thee; and, behind the dim clouds that men call religion, may we behold the face of the eternal Lover beaming ever upon His child, weak, sinful Man.

So that when the clouds have made us weary with our watching, when the tempest of life has shaken all things within us by its violence, when the rough winter wind has troubled us, then beyond these things may we behold the eternal City of the changeless God, and have hope that we, through Thy good guidance, may come at last into the Haven of the eternal Peace.

Lord God! we beseech Thee for the lowly spirit that through all change, through all doubt and darkness, can still trust in God. Were it not good for us that there should be darkness, why should it be? Were not the cold good for us, why should it be? And if evil were not working for good, why should it exist? We are quite ignorant of these things, we cannot know them as they should be known. Shine upon us through Thy works, O Lord! Uplift us above the storm and stress and stir of time, so that, undamaged by the violence and the vehemence of men, we may learn to live in inward peace, until such time as we shall have attained into our eternal Rest, after all our restlessness of spirit, our vain ambitions, and our idle desires.

Teach us more and more that the greatest deeds are those which most men can reach to do, and that the things which do excite men are things that be of little worth. So may we learn the beauty of mercy, and lowliness, and lovingkindness.

Forgive our sins, comfort us in our troubles uphold us in our work, shed the light of Thy countenance upon us. We ask it in Christ's name.—AMEN.