Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder
anew what the Almighty can do,
If
with his love he befriend thee.
---Joachim Neander, 1680, tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863
This particular hymn text astounds me. Penned in 1680 (the
translation made in 1868), this text deals with the nature of God’s power. What
is amazing to me is the intimate nature of the relationship the writer
envisions between the powerful God of the universe and everyday people like us (h/t to Sly and the Family Stone). I know I shouldn’t, but I tend to think of
intimacy with God as a contemporary thought; this text brings me up short. This
familiarity, this friendship, is
nothing evolved with our relational thinking; this has been a part of the way
many before you and me have experienced God’s care for God’s beloved. I am
asked to ponder anew what friendship with God can mean to regular folk like me.
What does it mean to be friends with God? How does this new identity affect the way
I view my worth, my potential, my value? And how would being God’s
friend change the way I walk this earth,
the way I relate to the rest of humanity? How would being God’s
friend make me a more compassionate, more
understanding, more tender friend to you? What kind of effect does that kind of
friendship have?
With friends like that…would we have enemies?
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