It Is Well With My Soul
With all of the doom and gloom engulfing us these days, it is important to think about how to pursue wellness. One way to do so is to ignore the onslaught of news about pain around us. The thinking goes, if we don’t stare it in the face, it can’t affect us as much. But there is another, more fulsome way to deal with the strain of living.
The songwriter Horatio Spafford reminds us that we can stare sin, Satan and death in the face, take account of how these forces undo us, and still declare that our souls can be well. He made this declaration in his hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,” which he penned after learning that all of his daughters had died at sea. Its lyrics remind him and all of us that we can declare our lives well because God is present in the midst of our suffering and has experienced tragedy too in the death of Christ. (“That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and shed his own blood for my soul.”)
Knowing that his own tragedy was to come, perhaps this is what was at stake for Jesus when he comforted the beleaguered masses: “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” This 1st century, poor Jewish teacher in occupied Palestine was inviting other colonized subjects to follow him, to seek after the Kingdom of God that was bigger than the the reign of Rome and some of the misguided leadership of the Jewish people.
The powers of this world that lead to the tragedies of death - including the death of Jesus and the death of Spafford’s children - will not have the last say. In his living, dying, and being raised, Jesus shows us the way to eternal life in God, a rest far deeper than the restlessness that tragedies induce in us now.
So as I play this song for you, I pray you can take stock of how it is well with your soul. May you experience God’s presence in your midst as you sojourn through dangers, toils and snares of this life, for Jesus wept, then died, and now lives.