You could see these words from a popular chorus as a bare-minimum admittance, a way to cheer ourselves up from an Eeyore complex: “I guess God is still working, even if I don’t see it.” But as I sang them tonight, they became an attestation of what I believe about human history.
The Christian worldview asserts that human history has both a definitive beginning and a definitive ending, and that the author is God; therefore, if it’s His story, He’s always working in it. Simple logic, profound ramifications.
Stories are found in every culture, ancient and modern, and I’m convinced it’s because a plot line is embedded in the concept of what it means to be human. (English hats on: plot line = setting/exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.) Stories around the world in nearly every era appear independently with these elements; it’s incredible.
Stories explain the ‘why’: we long for meaning in the random events, the phenomena, the pain, the dead-ends, and so we create. We contrive. We seek and pronounce purpose. And this innate longing for resolution fits with a worldview that says existence itself is a story. In this line of thought, story-making points to an ultimate drawing-together of all things that exceeds any one existence or era.
One of the biggest draws to Christianity for me is the hope that it offers through an overarching story: a story that imbues pain with purpose. That doesn’t waste the flukes, the fears, the fights. That is written across the canvas of civilizations and is bigger than them all.
It’s wild. It’s un-authorable by mortals. I have an idea of where it’s headed, but I don’t quite know in which part I fit. Timing is everything, they say, but I say that Author is everything. Trust in an author makes a series worth reading; trust in history’s Author gives me reason to keep living.
His name is love and He offers to dwell in us in a human-divine partnership: it’s the stuff of stories. Or real life.
And that’s why I can say, “Even when I don’t see it, You’re working. Even when I can’t feel it, You’re working. You never stop, You never stop working.”
He doesn’t quit writing His own story. He’s not that type.
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The full, great song is “Way Maker” by Leeland.