Good Monday Morning, Dear Friends,
One of the verses that has always spoken to me is found in Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” We’re not sure of the circumstances under which the psalmist wrote, but a bit of imagination suggests that he was living in a day when everything seemed to be going wrong. However, as we grow older, we often gain a magnificent insight: Bad days are inevitable followed by good days. Poet and hymn writer William Cowper put it this way: “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”
What he meant, of course, was that an “unseen hand” is moving in invisible ways to achieve its purpose. Abraham Lincoln once said that the important thing is not that the angels are on our side but that we are on the side of the angels. Lincoln’s wisdom provides us valuable insight. The universe never permanently sides with brutality, cruelty, and injustice. After a while the wrongs correct themselves.
While a student in divinity school years ago, I lived next door to a man in his 90s named Logan Hall. I noticed a calmness and tranquility in his soul which were not always present in my own. I would watch current events on the evening news and become deeply troubled about the future. I would sometimes talk to Mr. Hall about these things but there was simply no way to get him rattled or discouraged. “It’s God’s world,” he would say, “and God has not resigned, nor is God dead.” I wondered what he had that I didn’t have.
I understand it now. He had lived a long time. He had been through two world wars, the Great Depression, and seen empires rise and fall. He had heard all the prophets of doom and seen the world move from the brink of one disaster to another. But he had also seen the sun rise every morning for 95 years. He still found the world beautiful and the remnants of goodness triumphing over the worst of things. He had lived long enough to see justice prevail when it seemed that justice would never come. He would share these things with me and then lean back in his rocker, “Be patient, son. There is still goodness at work in the world, and it’s going to win. Hitler predicted that the Third Reich would last 1,000 years. He missed it by 988.”
A lot of years have passed since Logan Hall shared with me his simple faith, but I’ve come to believe he was right. The world hasn’t come apart. When you can remember that it’s a lot easier to be patient.
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
