All's Right With the World

 

Yesterday was a therapy day.  Following the routine of all other therapy days, my session began on the recumbent stepper machine, to warm up my leg muscles.  The machine faces the window, so as usual, while I'm going through the motions on the machine, yesterday I found myself staring out the window and daydreaming.

 

Yesterday's view looked something like this:

 

 

 

As I stared out the window and as my mind was wandering, I found myself recalling a line from Robert Browning's poem Pippa Passes.  The most famous section of that poem goes like this:





 

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world!



It's that last bit that grabbed my attention yesterday.  God's in His heaven - All's right with the world.

It's a lovely thought.  But really, there's a lot that's not right with the world right now.  Earthquakes and suffering.  Illness and bereavement.  And let's don't even get started discussing bathroom issues or presidential politics.

We can name a lot that is not right in our world today.  But in spite of all the things that seem not right in our world, Browning was exactly right when he wrote that line.

Because no matter what is going on in the world.  No matter who is elected the next President of these United States, whether Bernie or Hillary or Trump or Cruz. No matter how bad things seem, the absolute truth is that God is in control.

Browning echoes a truth from the pages of Scripture.  No matter what is going on in our world, God is in control.  And so, no matter what our circumstances may be, we can rest in that truth.  God is on His throne.  God is in control.

God's in his heaven - all's right with the world.  (Robert Browning)

"For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.  All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off His hand, or say to Him, 'What have You done?'" (Daniel 4:34b-35 NASB)