“Leave to your God to order and provide.”

Hymn: “Be Still, My Soul” – Katharina von Schlegel (1752)
Tune: FINLANDIA (Sibelius)

Don’t you hate to walk up to a machine you need to use and attached to it you find a hand-scrawled, barely legible note that says “Out of Order”… or as I saw recently, “Out of Oder”!

Admit it: sometimes our lives are out of order… or are no longer orderly. Things are not where they’re supposed to be. Our priorities are out of whack. We may not be able to put our proverbial finger on the problem, but we know it exists.

We seem to understand the provisional nature of God – Jehovah Jireh – the God who provides not only a ram in the thicket to avoid the sacrifice of a Biblical patriarch’s child, but also provides for our everyday needs.

We are a little less familiar with the God who wants to order our steps… to lead us not into temptation – not along thorny paths, but rather beside the still waters. God has a plan – a path – in mind for us. He knows what needs to happen in what order for us to have the most abundant life possible. We, on the other hand, want to do things in OUR preferred order, confident that we know what is best for us, forgetting that (from a previous posting) the Father Knows Best!

This hymnline calls us to leave it up to God to perfectly order our lives and to provide exactly what we need… and to do neither based on what we want! That is not nearly as easy as it may sound or as straight-forward as a sugar-coated sermon or devotional might lead us to believe. This kind of turn-it-over performance comes after much rehearsal. Still, it is worth giving the effort to achieve this kind of commitment.

Has someone hung a sign on your life that says “Out of Order”? Leave it up to the original Repairman!

As a reassurance, this stanza ends with this couplet:
    “Be still, my soul, your best, your heavenly Friend
    Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.”

This Hymn Beautifully Sung by Boys Choir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqgC1tqifV8