Everything and All
In this self-sufficient, egotistical and driven world, it's easy to forget (or for the most part not realise) that we don't actually control anything.
In fact, we waste an awful lot of time trying to be head honcho, top dog, ahead of the game, kingpin, super woman, high-flier, alpha dog, victor and vanquisher. But we only ever are in the convenience of our addled minds.
Not that I can't see why being in change of one's fate is an attractive proposition. I must've spent the better part of my childhood muttering, "One day, you won't be the boss of me".
However, when that “day” came - long before the ice bucket challenge was a thing - the mental equivalent washed over me and I understood that it was a pipe dream meant to steer you through life until you figured out what was what.
Enslaved African-Americans knew a thing or two about this. Wherever it was in the tropics they had been abducted and "shipped" from, they had three constants - their language, rituals and music. The first two may have become corrupted and finally disappeared over the years, but the third never did.
They sang.
Continuously.
In whispers and loud voices.
About the joyful simplicity of their former lives and the abject humiliation of the new.
Of inhuman transatlantic passages and the shame of being sold as auction lots.
Toiling in the hot sun on unyielding plantations, dreading mortifying 'promotions' from field-Negro to house-Negro.
Of beatings and whippings and non-escapes and extra-punishments....and waiting on God.
Always acknowledging that come what may, He was their hope and firmly in charge.
They sang:
🎼
He’s got the whole world, in His hand
He’s got the whole wide world, in His hand
He’s got the whole world, in His hand
He’s got the whole world, in His hand.
He’s got the wind and the rain, in His hand
He’s got the sun and the moon, in His hand
He’s got the plants and the creatures, in His hand
He’s got everybody here, in His hand
He’s got the whole world, in His hand."*
🎼
Today, we find both comfort and perspective in one fell swoop in the words of a timeless spiritual of yesteryear.
What a relief that some things never change.
👓
■
📖 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Colossians 1:17 NLT (YouVersion)
📖 ...with his strong hand, his powerful arm; his love is eternal.
Psalm 136:12 GNT (YouVersion)
■
*”Spirituals Triumphant Old and New” compiled by Edward Boatner, 1927.
■
📷 rawpixel