Lessons Learned

I love that God speaks to me through songs. Here is one song that has really been impressed upon my heart lately, and has been helping me discover truth:








God Moves in a Mysterious Way

Words by William Cowper
Recorded by Jeremy Riddle

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain,
in His own time,
and His own way...

In the first verse, I love the imagery of the grandeur and power of God planting his footsteps in the sea and riding upon the storm. Both of these images speak to me of things that appear out of control and at times a bit frightening. I’ve always been pretty frightened of the ocean, and I much prefer viewing it from a safe distance. There is such power there, and a myriad of unknown dangers. Of course, anyone who has witnessed the drama of a stormy sky can visualize the great forces of nature there as well. Neither of these things can be controlled by man, yet God is definitely master over them.

In my own life, I need to remember this truth. When circumstances seem completely out of control, and I am afraid, I need to remember that there are no circumstances that are out of God’s control, no matter how big and destructive they appear to be.

Verse 2 describes how God treasures up his bright designs deep in unfathomable mines.

So He stores these up in areas that are inaccessible until it is his purpose to bring the treasure out. It is good that the designs are bright rather than dark or ominous, even though some seasons and trials can feel oh, so dark. It reminds me of the scripture in Is. 55:8 ‘“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.’ God has His own thoughts and purposes that are unfathomable to us at times. There are times that I just don’t understand what God is allowing to happen in my life. This is when I have to remember that He is God and He has sovereign purposes to fulfill. I don’t see the big picture, but He does.

Here the chorus really speaks volumes:

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break, in blessings on your head.”

I can’t even begin to think of all the times when I have surveyed the horizon of my life and been met with the ominous sight of looming, dark clouds that have provoked at the least, apprehension, and more commonly, outright distress. When scripture tells us in Phil. 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God,” I think we are looking at the same principle. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed with the fearsome potential that those dark, stormy clouds represent, but I wonder if I have been viewing it wrongly all this time? True, storms can bring damage, and we are not able to control them. All we can do is brace ourselves and wait them out. But in reality, most storms bring the blessing of much needed rain; catastrophic storms are more the exception than the rule.

I take comfort in the words of this chorus because they ring true. Many times the circumstances that I dread, while appearing to bring devastation, in reality, usher in great blessing.

The song goes on to say: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.”

I have been grappling with the concept of how God works His will in our lives, and how that reconciles with our free will. I have been so angry over a choice that someone made which impacted my daughter (at the time, I thought negatively), and I was convinced that it was against God’s will. But there was no recourse, no opportunity for reconciliation. All choice in the matter was taken away from her, and it seemed truly unfair and ungodly. There was nothing left to do besides cry out to God for His mercy and comfort for her. Trusting Him for His grace comes easily when there is nowhere else to go or nothing else to do, and I think He sometimes has to strip us down to the place of zero options before we are able to submit to His will. In this case, what was necessary for Christina’s growth and future blessing was for God to strip away all choices from her. What was an unexpected and seemingly devastating storm in her life actually was the mechanism God was using to bring great blessing to her.

Through this season, I have also been thinking of the process of prayer, and how God answers it. I have been praying that He would place right desires in my heart and in the hearts of those dear to me: ones that will conform us more and more to His will. I am certain that no matter what happens in my life and the lives of those I care about, the best place to be is in the center of God’s will, even if that is the eye of the storm. And truthfully, it feels like that sometimes.

These next words from the song speak of the perfection of God’s timing: “His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour; the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.”

I’m not sure if this is saying that trying to partake of His purpose too early will bring bitterness, or if it is saying that what may seem bitter early in the development of His purpose for us, when fully ripe, will be beautiful and sweet. I can see both interpretations, and what I am observing now seems to be more of the second interpretation. You don’t get the beautiful flower without maturing through the bud.

We have a lot of roses in our yard, and I have noticed that they have very different rates of maturation. I can cut a tightly closed bud of one variety of rose and put it into a vase, and within a day, it will be fully open, yielding a heady fragrance. Another variety will stay compactly closed for several days, opening lazily before yielding the full extent of its beauty. The error I fall into when I am trying to understand the Lord’s purpose and timing in specific circumstances, especially those that that seem so unreasonably unfair, is that I tend to expect God to follow a set formula or time-table for answering my prayers. It’s like when you know that someone will take a couple of days to respond to your emails as a rule, so you don’t expect to hear back from them right away. I have had many times when I have had to doggedly persist in prayer (a very biblical thing, as evidenced by Jesus’ story of the persistent widow), and really that has been the pattern for how God has worked in my life. I am used to having to persist in prayer over a long time. Sometimes, I grow frustrated as I try to seek out the reason for the situation, or the apparent delay in God’s answers. Most of the time, I hunker down and resign myself to waiting for the Lord to act, and try to be content to trust Him.

What caught me off guard these past few weeks has been how quickly the answers to my prayers have come lately, and the form they have taken. When I consider the nature of my prayers of the past 2-3 months, I am filled with awe at how God has answered them so wondrously in the fullness of time, and yet, why should I be surprised at what the Lord has done, or even the timing of it? Why would He not answer such prayers? He is teaching me to not only ask, but to fully expect the blessing of His answer and provision.

This past year has been somewhat of a roller coaster of emotion, with the stresses of Christina’s senior activities, final shows, graduation events, and preparation for college. The exhilaration of Anna’s and Josh’s wedding was immediately followed by the sadness of the ending of a couple of important relationships, and Jason’s departure for grad school in Canada. A depressing fog that seemed like it would blanket our family for the next semester suddenly and quite unexpectedly dissipated however, and initially, I struggled with understanding how this could be, and feared that this was just a lull in the storm.

“Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain, in His own time, in His own way…”

Looking back on the confusion and frustration of some of the events of this summer and fall, and wondering why things happened the way they did, I realize now that what seemed like a devastating storm that was swirling out of control was really the hand of the Lord as He prepared a way for even greater blessing. I am ready to embrace that blessing, and instead of shrinking back from the rain, will lift my face and rejoice in the fullness of His timing for all of us. He is good, and His timing and purposes are indeed perfect. In the future, when I scan my horizon and see those dark clouds, I hope I will take fresh courage rather than fear and dread, knowing that the clouds are big with mercy and will break with blessings... from our God who does all things well!