...I'll be good sometime

Take my life, lead me, Lord, take my life, lead me, Lord,

Make my life useful to thee.

---R. Maines Rawls, 1968

I was sitting up late one night during a holiday break, when college-age children were ‘home’ for a bit. My cell phone chime startled me out of a thoughtful reverie (ok, Sarah, I was probably asleep in the green chair), and I picked it up to read the following text message: I’ll be good sometime. After my heart stopped racing, I was able to decipher the message; the sender’s predictive texting had interpreted the entered word ‘home’ as the word ‘good’ (same letters on the T9 keypad). And while I’ll be home sometime isn’t terribly specific, it is much more comforting than  I’ll be good sometime.

In this life, most of us can handle being called to ‘goodness’. We can do that, even if it is only ‘sometimes’. But, God knows, family, we are called to more than goodness. We are called to usefulness, to service, to faithfulness to the Savior who poured out his own life for ours.

Friends, we are not called just to be ‘good sometime’; we are called to be good for something.

...on singing all the verses

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;

Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;

his craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,

on earth is not his equal.

---Martin Luther, c. 1529

In some churches, when time in the service runs short, hymns may be abbreviated by leaving out verses (personally, I think each verse has its own message for me, and I love singing them all!). With most hymns you lose some of the wisdom using this approach, but the general message remains understandable. Today’s hymn is a stark exception. Sing only the first verse of this hymn, and the world is left in the hands of evil, with no valiant hero to fend off our “ancient foe”. What a state we’re left in at the end of the first verse of this 500-year-old hymn!

But in hymns as in life, an old saying comes to mind. It goes like this: “Everything works out in the end. If things haven’t worked out, it’s not the end!” With our human shortsightedness, we grow impatient for things to work out, for problems to be solved, for worries to be calmed, for questions to be answered, for right to prevail. Because our sight is limited to vision, we tremble at the unseen unresolved. Because our sense of time is limited to what we can measure, we cower at the prospect of a boundless future. Remembering that God’s time is not often our time, let us actively await the final stanza…

“God’s kingdom is forever.”