God's Song to us

 

We continue to hold the hymn, “I was there to hear your borning cry” as our light to see our lives this week.  Hear now the third verse:

In the middle ages of your life,

not too old, no longer young,

I'll be there to guide you through the night,

complete what I've begun.

When the evening gently closes in,

and you shut your weary eyes,

I'll be there as I have always been

with just one more surprise.

This verse sings to my life right now.  I wonder, how is God guiding me through the night?  How does God help me through those moments when I cannot always see the next right step?  Or I have stumbled and fallen?  What is God seeking to complete that God begun years before?  What is that one more surprise God has up God’s sleeve?

No matter how many birthday candles were on your cake last year, God sings this verse to you.  As author Jon Acuff says, “Today is brand new and tomorrow is too.”  Yet, we don’t always live this way.  We get caught in cycles of cynicism and criticism and thinking that pointing out the problems is the best way to show our intelligence.  We dehumanize people with comments on social media and then retreat to our preferred media bubble/echo chamber to reinforce that “those” people/the other side has it all wrong.  Then, as adults, we idealize youth as being the ones who will fix all the problems we were not able to resolve in our lives.  Each night, we shut our weary eyes, do we have a sense of what God is up to?  Do we stay open to God’s surprises and sacred stirring amid our to-do lists?  Do we desire to be caught up in God’s work rather than our own?

If this verse is God’s prayer for you today, what difference do these make?  How can you stay open to what God is doing through good moments and difficult ones?

Go back, slowly read these words as your prayer for today.  And may these words sing you through every waking second this day.  Amen.