Yet

When our girls were young, there were almost always cries in the night and my body, incapable of responding again, somehow would find the strength to get up one more time to see what was the matter, everything from  lost pacifiers to nosebleeds, stomach flu (the worst!) and once an emergency room case of poison ivy.  I never knew what to expect.  On one particular night, having walked upstairs for the umpteenth time, I settled one of the girls down from what seemed to be a series of bad dreams.  Instead of going back down the stairs, I lay down exhausted on the floor next to her bed and pulled a doll’s blanket partially over me.  Sure enough, within just a few minutes, she cried out again as phantoms had crept back into her dreams.  I didn’t even get up.  I just reached up and patted her arm.  “Oh, Mama, if I knew you were here, I wouldn’t have been scared,” she said.

It is when life is dark and shadows are suddenly animated that God injects into our story the word YET.  It is His way of patting our arm to assure us of His Presence.  I love that word because it lets us know that whatever we face is not the end of the story.   He is here.  This situation or crisis is not the end of life as we know it;  there is something more or something different about to happen.  And He is still in control.  Indeed, in lowland Scotland, “yet” is local dialect for “a gate.”  It is another opening, a new door.  There is more and more to be.  It is looking from the present time – which may be dark indeed – to what is to come.  The Bible is full of this word of promise.

When darkness filled the land of Egypt, “Yet all the Israelites had light in the places they lived.”  Exodus 10.23

In a time when David was being hunted down and filled with despair:  “Yet I am always with you.”  Psalm 73.23

Over and over again, “Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;  He rises to show you compassion.”  Isaiah 30.18

“Yet their Redeemer is strong;  the LORD Almighty is His name.”  Jeremiah 50.34

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.”  Lamentations 3.21

Some friends of mine faced a desperate situation last week, and yet, they knew that God was still in control.  It is a word of hope and trust, even when we may not yet understand.

Thoughts of fate and dumb luck abandon you in a miry pit of randomness and despair,  but the Bible says, in the midst of fear and darkness and hard times, YET God is working.  There is hope.  There is strength to keep going.  There is meaning and purpose, even in this, and God’s Providence in every dimension, far deeper than we can ever comprehend.  YET is the cry of our Redeemer, the shout of deliverance even in the midst of trouble.

Hang on to that word.  All may be bleak, my friend, yet God…

 

Though the fig tree do not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet

I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the LORD, is my strength;

He makes my feet like hinds’ feet,

He makes me tread upon my high places.

                          Habakkuk 3. 17-19