In God Alone

Most of my life I've considered routines to be boring.  What I'd like to know is exactly when did I grow so fond of them!  This love-and-longing for what is "normal" seems to have wiggled its way from "a setting on the dryer" to an appointed nightly tea-time!  Surely, old age has not arrived!

 

What can cause the human soul to settle for an otherwise uneventful life?  Coming at us from all directions are options to thrill-to-amazement -- often one right after another.  I recall quiet evenings under shade trees, in old painted metal chairs, with nothing more exciting than the lightning bugs.  Those moments of a particular calm unlike anything today. Regardless what is perceived as routine or normal, there is shallow hope that it will continue.  The psalmist writes of a One Who is refuge for man’s soul: "In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." (Psalm 4:8).  It is Almighty God Who patterns life for those who truly love Him.  It’s a blessedness with which we move through each day, not trusting in the fleeting, but rather hoping (confidently expecting) in the Steadfastness of the great I AM.  One evening Martin Luther saw a small bird perched on a tree to roost, and said: “This little bird has had its supper, and now it is getting ready to go to sleep here, quite secure and content, never troubling itself what its food will be, or where is lodging on the morrow. Like David, it abides under the shadow of the Almighty.” We do well to slow-the-pace and ask early in the day, "in what or whom do I trust?"  Do I take comfort and hope in the contented moments and fulfillments, or am I trust in the never-changing Creator of my soul and Sovereign King?  My evening tea-times are a sweet and welcome routine, but apart from I AM … it’s just tea!

 

He guides our feet – He guards our way - His morning smiles bless all the day

He spreads the evening veil, and keeps - The silent hours while Israel sleeps – Isaac Watt