I must admit that I didn’t know this song. It must be from the other side of the denominational tracks from where I grew up. But I love the words. Of course, I’ve heard the phrase, “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,” but I didn’t know where it came from.
There are several phrases that touch my heart in this moment.
Oh fearful saints new courage take
The clouds that you now dread
Are big with mercy and will 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.
(My Note: I don’t see God frowning at all. I think we perceive Him that way, but that’s not how He is at all. He’s smiling, and He’s not hiding it!)
When tears are great
And comforts few
We hope in mercies ever new
We trust in You.
God’s purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower.
(My Note: Isn’t that a beautiful way to put it. No matter how bleak things may look right now, we know they will change! We have hope in God!)
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain
God is His own interpreter
And He will make it plain.
(My Note: I’ve been reading Eric Hovind’s Creation Science blog, and he gets lots of comments from atheistic science students that are so sad to read. This verse describes so well the reason for their unbelief. They are the blind being led by the blind, and they are interpreting the natural world by all the wrong presuppositions. It is very sad, yet nearly impossible to show them the error of their ways. They study Creation minutely, but they can’t see the Creator.)
What it comes down to is this:
God is sovereign. Everything He does, He does out of love for us. We may have to wait for all of His purposes to unfold. We may have to go through some purging and cleansing trials. But in the end, we know He has a reason for everything he does and allows.
How could we not trust Him?
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
