It is well with my soul.
The refrain echoing through my head the past few months.
If you follow our blog you know the last several months, scratch that, the last year and a half, has been a season of transition.
Sara and I started dating, we got engaged, we got married, lived in a one bedroom casita, started a business, bought and sold some horses, bought more horses, started a bunch of colts, bought a house in a different state, and moved to the different state.
All within a year and a half.
It is well with my soul.
How easy that is to say. To live without fear, to trust the Lord, to live — as Paul said — to die is gain, to live is Christ. The human life is finite, it exists for only a season.
I am a mere fraction of the story the Lord has written.
He informs me I am but dust, to dust I am from and to dust I will return.
His word tells us to not worry about tomorrow for sufficient are today’s worries. How the Lord clothes the lilies of the field and provide for the sparrows of the air, why should I worry where my food will come from or the clothes on my back.
The Lord will provide. It is well with my soul.
The human condition is to worry. It is to be concerned about tomorrow because I am fallen to sin, to not trust the Lord and take matters into my own hands. I come from a long line of sinners, a heritage of sin.
I put the first ride on six colts this least season. Six times I trusted the fate of my life to a nine hundred pound animal whose instinct told it the large mass climbing onto its back should not be trusted. Really, the mass needs to be expelled from the horse's back through any means necessary.
And yet, I struggle to trust the Lord. The king of kings, the lord of lords.
I wonder what the disciples thought the night Jesus died and the following days. How often we don’t consider the day between His death and resurrection. What did the disciples feel? Fear, certainly. Doom, perhaps. The man they had followed was in a tomb.
Maybe the prophecies were wrong. The curtain temple was torn. Didn’t He say He would rebuild the temple in three days. The temple is still standing. How could we have been so foolish to give up our livelihoods to this man. We thought He was the Messiah. He left us alone, afraid, and poor. What will we do now. How do we continue on.
It is well with my soul. The refrain echoing through my head.
Some days I feel as the disciples - afraid, worried, not sure what the days ahead hold. Other days I know who God is, the one who has clothed the lilies of the field, provided for the birds of the air, and has told me the end of the story.
As a Christian, it is sometimes easy to say it is well with my soul or to condemn those who struggle to believe it.
Is it well with my soul?
Yes. I know the end of the story. I know God, who is my Maker, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the ruler of heaven and earth. Who provides for sparrows, who clothes the lilies in a royal garment.
It is well with my soul.
I wholeheartedly agree with the questioning whether or not my soul is well. I struggle with existing in the full provision of God-I am still here, I am still standing, I still have joy and yet worry about having enough. Enough to pay the bills, enough energy to do the housework and the mowing, and walk the dogs and oh yeah, I have to eat something too. I have too much to be grateful for to sit in idleness and worry. The song Jireh plays in my head as you state that He dresses the lilies with beauty and splendor, how much more does he clothe you? If He watches over the sparrows, how much more does He love you?