It is a painting, or a sculpture, or a drama

I just got home from a funeral.

A dear friend of mine lost her daughter far too soon. We sang and we prayed and we heard about the very same Jesus who called this girl home.

We experienced the power of song to give voice to our feelings, even if we are only listening.

As I sit and reflect, while my own children sit in the same room as me, watching television after school, I am more aware than normal that I do not know what comes tomorrow. It may be great joy or it may be grief.

In some ways, that might make life feel chaotic. Or it may make us feel like we are at the mercy of fate. What will be will be. But as my train travelled along the tracks, I was reading John Piper’s book Providence. I had brought my iPad instead of a proper book and this is what he writes in the introduction:

God does not intend for us to see ourselves, or any part of the world, as cogs in the wheels of an impersonal mechanism. The world is not a machine that God made to run on its own. It is a painting, or a sculpture, or a drama.

In our response to God’s word, preached by a teacher of mine, we sang these words. They move me every time.

Be still my soul, your God will undertake

to guide the future as he has the past.

Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;

all now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still my soul, the wind and waves will know

His voice, who ruled, while he was here below.