Next Job

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Photo by Biser Todorov

Today in church we sang a song called Be Still, My Soul, and this line really impressed me -- or more to the point, God really impressed me with this line:

Be still, my soul,

your God will undertake to guide the future,

as in ages past...

To me "your God will undertake" makes the lyrics much more solid and real. Katharine von Schlegel, who wrote them back in 1752, doesn't say, "Don't worry because God is always guiding the future from eternity," like many hymn writers would. No, she says, "Don't worry Christian, because God is rolling up his sleeves, getting out his tools, spitting in his hands and rubbing them together, and 'undertaking' his next job -- guiding the future." He is a worker (John 5.17); God gets dirty hands and splinters while he constructs this future.

Just like he has dependably done for "ages past."