Truth Always Wins

End of the year columns summarize the past, project good expectations for the future, or garner a little bit of each.

Former President Obama accurately prophesied the future in 2020 when he allegedly warned, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to [screw] things up.” President Biden vastly under performed the past four years. Turn the page.

If we want to anticipate positive changes in America and the world, we need to change how we think. We need to stop thinking “under the circumstances.”

“It is well with my soul,” is a wellknown hymn about God’s power over hopelessness. Horatio Spafford was a successful lawyer and entrepreneur in Chicago during troubling times in the 1870s. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 ruined his businesses and investments. Then in 1873 the economy began faultering.

Nevertheless as a man of faith Spafford trusted God regardless of external circumstances. This story is not about how Horatio Spafford’s faith lifted him out of extremely bad circumtances, but how Spafford harnessed critical thinking to reconsider God’s power to overcome hopeless circumstances.

Circumstances got worse for Spafford when his four daughters died at sea on a voyage to England with their mother in 1873. Anna, Spafford’s wife, sent a terse telegram to him after the tragedy that read, “Saved alone….”

As I began thinking about a suitable column to close the door on four of the most frustrating years in American history, I wanted to lean into more promising times for our nation and the world. That’s when I remembered Spafford’s song.

On his trip to comfort Anna, Spafford’s ship approached the spot where his daughters had drowned, and God spoke these words to him. “When peace like a river, attends my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, You have taught me to know It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

At some point in his life Spafford stopped thinking “under the circumstances” and began thinking about the power of God. That’s when he wrote,

“It is well with my soul.”

Then Spafford wrote the second verse. “Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And has shed His own blood for my soul.” Spafford wrote four more verses in his original lyrics.

His third verse portrays God’s power over the most hopelessness of all. “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

His last verse is a prayer. “And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.”

Circumstances are powerful. But, are we doomed to quiver “under the circumstances” our whole lives? Are there alternatives to thinking and working under conventional circumstances? I believe in the very near future we’ll see new ways working through challenges. Technology is not superior to creative or critical thinking.

Why is culture moving us away from God? Why does the establishment censor truth? Truth always wins. Nothing can hide forever under the circumstances. Truth will set us free.