Hey, Church! 

The song “Do It Again” expresses confidence in God while still waiting for His deliverance.

Walking around these walls, I thought by now they’d fall;
but you have never failed me yet.
Waiting for change to come, knowing the battle’s won; 
but you have never failed me yet. 

Some will survey their life’s disappointments and retort with a scoff, “What do you mean God has never failed me? How else can you explain this… [broken relationship; unanswered prayer; sudden tragedy; failed marriage; wayward child; life-altering injury; inoperable disease; etc.]?” 

Every human being feels, at times, let down by God. For example, it is perfectly reasonable, from an earthly, time-bound perspective, to expect the Author of Life to sustain our children into late adulthood. Especially (or, so we reason) if our kids are pure in heart, growing in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So, when our infant dies in his sleep, or our teenage daughter is killed in a car accident, we have no worldly, rational recourse to “make it make sense.” If this world is all there is, then we can only conclude that God has failed us. 

But, thanks be to God! He has overcome this world, and there is infinitely more to the tapestry He is weaving than our earthly imaginations can fathom. Simply put, what He sees and what we see are not even close to the same. And this dissonance shouldn’t surprise us; God told us explicitly that we will not always agree with Him, or be able to make sense of His judgments:

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Is. 55:8-9)

“Do It Again” continues: 

Your promise still stands; great is your faithfulness, your faithfulness. 
I’m still in your hands. This is my confidence. You’ve never failed me yet.

The truth of the words, “You have never failed me yet” is based on faith in the unseen ways of the Lord. The word “yet” is not a pessimistic expectation that someday the shoe will drop, but simply a way of saying, “You’ve been faithful up to this point in my life, so why would I doubt you now?” If we could only see what the end result of our suffering will be–what degree of God’s glory and our good is being cultivated through our pain–we would not be so quick to complain when we are cut by the Vinedresser’s shears. 

I love the way Philip Yancey puts it in his book Disappointment with God: 

“Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” 

The song’s climactic moment, much like psalms of lament, ends in a confident assertion of hope in God’s promised deliverance:

I’ve seen You move; You move the mountains, 
and I believe I’ll see you do it again. 
You made a way where there was no way,
and I believe I’ll see you do it again.

So, Christian, what were some of your past “mountains”? Do you have eyes of faith to look back and see, “in reverse,” what God began building out of that crisis? 

Educators refer to learning as a process of disequilibrium and equilibrium. In order for our minds to adapt to new information, we first experience a shattering of expectations (disequilibrium). True learning takes place when new expectations replace the broken ones, and we learn to exist in that more mature sense of reality. Growing in faith can be like that, too. We expected “A,” but got “Z,” leaving us to feel, on the one hand, that God has failed us (disequilibrium). But faith, on the other hand, is a gift from God that enables us to recalibrate our expectations to heavenly standards. We find rest (equilibrium) not in what we see, but in what only God sees. 

This weekend, commit your mountains to God. Ask Him to help you see with His eyes. When you come to church on Sunday, be ready to sing with confidence, “I’ve seen you move the mountains and I believe I’ll see you do it again!