One of the great perennial hymns of faith is, “This Is My Father’s World.”  In the first verse, those words are followed by, “I rest me in the thought…”  Indeed.  That’s the point of the hymn: the world is not a cold, indifferent rock infested by human parasites; it is God’s creation and we are integral to its created glory.  We have a place in this world.  God has created a world, that for all its perils and pain, is orderly and beautiful.  That’s the affirmation of the hymn.  The third verse assures us that “though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” 

The affirmations about the order, beauty and justice of the world are just that: affirmations of faith, not prima facie evidence.  The world and our experience of it is complicated.  Admittedly, nearly everyone reading these words is better off than the vast majority of the world’s population.  And this is the best time to be alive in recorded history (despite all our problems) if you measure things like health and lifespan and physical security. 

But that doesn’t mean that life is always easy.  To “rest me in the thought” requires a trusting relationship with the Father – the Creator and Care-Taker of this world and my life.

Sometimes I live in “My Father’s World.”  Sometimes I trust in its goodness.  Sometimes I live very much in my mother’s world.  Tomorrow would be my mother’s 88th birthday.  Although my mother and I had a loving relationship, it was not uncomplicated.  I learned from her that the world was dangerous and that it was poised to snatch away happiness at every moment.  I learned from her that the world and life was not ever going to provide enough and that I was likely not up to meeting its challenges.

My mother wasn’t a cynic or bitter or depressed.  She was afraid.  Her deep fear lived alongside her faith as it does in so many of us.

To honor her on her birthday, I will try my best to live as though it’s my Father’s world.

Prayer:  Loving God, life sometimes seems too much for us.  We sometimes feel like strangers in our own skins.  Remind us that this world and this life is your gift to us.  Grant us rest in that thought.  Amen.