This week we will continue King's conversation about soft mindedness in "The Strength to Love." Once again, please excuse the male-centered language used in his writing.
The soft minded man always fears change. He feel security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea. An elderly segregationist in the south is reported to have said, "I have come to see now that desegregation is inevitable. But I pray God it will not take place until after I die." The soft minded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness.
Let us not think that King is saying all change is good. Rather, he is looking at us when we are so "turned-in-on-self" that we will not contemplate the worth of that which is not yet a part of our lives. When we fear change it is often because we have so much at stake in what is - the status quo - that it is no longer simply the "status quo," it is the god that orders our days and our deeds. To that god of what is frozen in time, we give up our life. I'm sure we are all tempted to follow such a god. It is what is known to us...it is how we have defined ourselves...it is how we find a way to view the world around us and to make judgments for and against what we see.
Connection: Have you ever experienced a new idea as "the greatest pain" in your life? Sometime the pain may not last long. At other times, it can begin to control everything else.
You, O God, have led your people through time with the promise that you will preside over our lives and be our guide, our stronghold, and our place of rest. But as we have witness in Scripture and in our own lives, we are ones who so easily turn away from the new paths you place before us within your Reign. Forgive us and inspire us. Amen.
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