Hymn of the Week: October 23, 2023
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
William Cowper (1731-1800)
Text: 1774
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill;
He treasures up His bright designs,
and works His sov'reign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust Him for His grace;
behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow'r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
and He will make it plain.
Today’s Devotion:
I love the hymn this week. You will see that, even though it was written in 1774, it’s text still rings true today. Be sure to check out the varied interpretations of the text in the YouTube examples below. Today’s article comes to us once again from Eric Routley’s wonderful book; Hymns of the Faith printed in 1954.
St. John 8:7
The author of this hymn (the only great classical English poet who was also a hymn writer) wrote above his verses, “St. John 8:7’; and the reference is to the saying of Jesus, “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” This is a hymn of a very rare and gracious kind, a hymn of the mystery of God’s being and acts.
It runs so smoothly, its lines are so neat and quotable, its thought so familiar, that it is easy to miss the genius of it. But let a man attempt a description of the mystery of God, let him attempt it in prose, let alone in verse, and it is tolerably certain that the statement in the end will be a series of negatives. It’s easy to use superlatives like Immortal, Invisible, Unapproachable, Incomprehensible, Uncreated and all the rest. These are far better than most men can conjure but they are no help in our faith. When a man can present us with the mystery, the otherness of God, and then put it all so positively that our belief and confidence are strengthened, when such a man can tell us of God’s bright designs, his generous mercy, and his grace, then we are in the presence of a true prophet.
The Old Testament is full of superlatives of God; God the Absolute, the object of devout adoration. We cannot rob God of those titles which are his prerogative to keep. “God moves in a mysterious way” is the work of a humble and sensitive man, whose own way became darker as life went on until he fell into a total mental night; but it is still a hymn of great and outward-looking faith.
It has, of course, but one thing to say, and It says it over and over again. God’s ways are not our ways, it says, but this we know, and can trust, that God is love, and that all his acts are subject to that. Of this, the Old Testament is particularly full, especially the second part of Isaiah. Tracing the works of God in history, the relation between God’s plan and the movements of the great political powers, he cries out, “Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself!’ Making a final appeal to men to leave the fashionable frivolity of a prosperous commercial society and return to what can be bought without money and without recourse to the black market, he says, ‘My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord, neither are my thoughts your thoughts’ (chapter 55). A lesser man might have been well content to say “Go to church and all will be well.”
Who will believe in the grace and power of a God who can be reduced to trivial human categories? Who will be comforted by news of such a God? Who will be judged and brought to repentance by such a one? The very mystery of God, the very remoteness and otherness of him is bound up in his grace. He has promised his protection, his healing, his friendship. ‘ Seek the Lord, for he may be found; call ye upon him for he is near’; yes indeed, but when you find him, when you know him near, still he is God, and his thoughts are not your thoughts; he holds the secrets of life and unlocks them at his own discretion, not at our request. “God is his own interpreter’; trust him for his grace.
The lines we know were born of great suffering by the poet, Cowper. They come not from a man about to emerge from darkness, but a man about to descend into it. They are the more powerful for that. TO all who now walkin darkness or dear they bring a message their author could not, in the end make his own – the very darkness, the withholding of light and clear guidance, are a sign of God’s grace and power – “Put your hand into the hand of God” – so runs that passage which King George VI made famous during the war-“Put your hand into the hand of God: that shall be better than a light, and safer than a known way. Better and safer: for it is safer to trust a God that doesn’t tell you his plans but promises victory than to some lesser being who has neither the mystery or the power.
Taken by itself, the hymn may leave us slightly chilled. Is faith then, blind? By what authority can a man say that we know nothing, yet God is loving and merciful in his purposes? On what authority may a man trust this kind of proposition when he lies wasting away with an incurable disease, or when bereavement has taken away the light of his house? The author answers that question in his Scripture reference, by reminding men of Christ. The love of God made clear and tangible in Christ is the authority. The course of that life and that victory are enough to make an honest man able to believe that the purposes of God are both irresistible and also loving, that God acts in history with a royal gentleness. With the figure of Christ before him, that man can trust the purposes of God.
