“Hast not Thou made an hedge about him . . . ? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?” (Job 1:10; 3:23)
Job asks how life can be considered worth living under such conditions. Here he sits on the refuse heap outside his door, somewhere in Arabia. A short while ago he had everything–children, wealth a-plenty, health and happiness, honor among men. Then one day came evil tidings. A servant ran in crying that raiders had run off with his flocks of asses and sheep. Another came, with news of a second raid and the loss of his cattle. A third, to say that his vast herds of camels were gone the same way. And then one came to break the worst news of all: the roof had fallen in and crushed his children and their families while they feasted. Still Job did not rebel against God.
Another blow fell: Job was stricken with a most painful, loathsome disease. His wife bade him give up his faith in a God who could so afflict a good man. “Curse God,” she cried; “curse God, and die.” Yet he would not. He was ready to receive good or ill, as God chose.
At last, across the desert, came three old friends to console him. They wept when they saw the man so changed; and sat down by him. Day after day they sat, while Job suffered in silence. But at length the pressure of their silence and their unspoken criticism broke down his guard. He began to speak. Why did God afflict a man who loved Him? What was life worth to one hedged in as he was?
There are many among us who feel as Job did. Some had wealth and all that wealth could buy, and suddenly it is gone, and they can not see how life can be endurable without it. Some are old and feeble; their friends are gone, and they are left alone, with idle hands. A man past his prime sees his employer’s company fail, and finds himself, with all his skill and experience, on the street, too old for employment. A talented girl finds herself bound down to the care of an invalid mother, and her talent must go undeveloped while she washes the dishes and makes the beds. Oh, there are many of us living within the hedge and many wonder why it must be. They ask, like Job, how life can be worthwhile within this thorny barrier.
There is a right and good philosophy of life for the man hedged in. But first, he had better search his own heart and see whether he himself has not set up this hedge by his own wilfulness, his own sins. If he has, the first thing for him to do is to have it out with God, making honest confession, and laying hold on Christ for forgiveness. With that settled, what comes next?
Trust God’s Plan
First, accept this simple proposition: that since God has put the hedge around him, here in the hedge is his proper place. Paul learned this lesson. “I have learned,” he writes, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Put him in jail at Philippi, with his feet in the stocks, and he praises God; put him in jail in Rome, and he is full of joy; put him in jail at Caesarea for two long years, and he has never a word of complaint to utter, knowing that God wants him there. If you can recognize the illness that lays you by the heels, the financial loss that strips you of what looked like opportunity, the bereavement that leaves you alone–if you can recognize these as by God’s permission, then certainly you can see that you belong here, within this hedge.
Do the Next Thing
Then comes a second simple proposition: if this is your proper place, then here you will find your proper work. God does not shut us in, away from what He would have us do. If the place is small, then it wants intensive cultivation, as the farm expert says. Put Paul in the Philippian jail and he starts to work on the soul of the jailor; in Rome, and he preaches Christ to the soldier to whom he is chained; to the curious courtier, the palace slave in Caesarea, and his ministry goes on as if there were no walls to confine him. If it is clear that Providence put you within the hedge, then you had best look about you to see what God wants you to do there; for undoubtedly He has your task waiting. And it may well be that by this new task, however limited it may seem, however trivial it may appear, you will do more for God and make more of yourself than could have been done at the task you had planned for yourself. “The things which happened unto me,” wrote Paul from his Roman prison, “have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places.” The prisoner had a congregation for his preaching which he could never have had as a free man.
Look Beyond
But there is one more proposition for the man in the hedge: though this is his proper place, and here his proper work, yet this is not his permanent abode. Some day the hedge will go down. It did for Job, and it does for everyone who serves God with a glad heart in a small place. God never leaves His own permanently within the hedge.
There is a difference worth noting here, between being content and being satisfied. The satisfied man wants nothing better, has no ambition, enjoys no hope. For him the inside of the hedge is good enough. But the contented man cheerfully makes the best of limitations, yet hopes and expects that some day they will end. Indeed, they sometimes end in this life. Even if they do not, life becomes so rich and full that the walls of the hedge seem to recede farther and farther, as the years pass. But when this earthly life ends, go down they will!
Paul knew that and looked for it with joyful expectation: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord shall give me at that day.” “Our light affliction which is but for the moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Therefore, no more whining! no more bitter complaints! No more doubts of God! How little we know of the mysteries of God’s providence and His grace! How blind we are; how faulty is our moral judgment! How dare we sit in judgment on our loving God because He has, for a time, hedged us in. Let us rather look here within the hedge, accepting its limitations and finding within this boundary the immediate task for us. We are not shut away from the richness and fullness of life, but shut in to it, and by God’s grace in Christ our Lord we shall do a far better work here than we could have done by battering down the hedge and getting our own way.
The Secret!
The secret? It is something more than mere passive submission. It is a trustful acceptance of the hedge and an eager acceptance of its challenge. And it is yet more. It is doing this as a servant of Christ Jesus, knowing that the hedge shuts us in with Christ Himself.
When Gipsy Smith first came to New York, one of his immediate errands was to look up a kinswoman, Belle Smith. He found her in a dingy back-bedroom in a tenement on the Bowery, in the most disreputable neighborhood in the city. For long years she had lain there, an invalid. But little by little the neighbors came to know her. One by one they came to her bedside in their troubles, and she counselled with them and prayed for them. Gipsy Smith sat beside her and said, “Belle, have you peace?” Her face brightened and she smiled: “Peace? I have the Author of peace!” There is the final secret of life within the hedge. Madame Guyon knew it well; and when imprisoned in the Bastille for her faith, she sang:
“A little bird am I,
Shut in from fields of air;
And all the day I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there:
Well pleased a prisoner to be
Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.”