Brightness of my Father’s glory, sunshine of my Father’s face,
keep me ever trusting, resting, fill me with thy grace.
“For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you. (Is. 54:10)
Beyond the loud cacophony of crumbling mountains and hills—the smoke and conflagration—rising above the destruction and chaos are the soft, melodious notes from the loving heart of God. Overtones of peace and mercy are prominent in the music of His divine dance. The loud sounds of the mountains and hills falling lose their significance in His song. The tender notes of His covenant of peace persistently, gently, rise above the dissonance and clamor. His compassion, His incessant loving devotion, the theme song of creation. The mountains will fall, but the promises of God will never fail. His eternal love will never die. It is from everlasting to everlasting.
Not only the physical mountains and hills, but the figurative ones—the people and things in our lives—shall depart. Friends and family may fail us, governments may fall, our health taken from us, even our riches removed, but God will never fail us. He may rebuke and correct us, but He never will, nor can He, cast us off. The love of God is older than the mountains, deeper than the sea, wider than the heavens, and stronger than all our sin. We are prone to place our love and hope on the pervasive, temporal discord of earthly delights, for they bring us pleasure and excitement. Yet, if we listen carefully, we will hear the merciful, soft, melodious undertones of God wooing us to Him, to devote ourselves to Him, to be zealous for His honor. When we are zealous for God, we partake of His covenant of peace (Num. 25:11-13); we dance His divine dance. To be zealous for God’s honor is to seek after Him and His love. When we join our lives to Him, we hold the temporal joys with a loose hand, knowing they are for a little time and they will change, they will fall, and they will pass away. If only we could grasp this truth, sorrow and care, anxiety and trouble would fade away and we would find rest in Him.
Are you seeking after God? Have you experienced His loving devotion to you? Have you entered His covenant of peace? When your hopes and dreams are slipping away, when you are in the furnace of affliction, you cannot be desolate if you have God. Though the mountains depart, and the hills be removed, His love, His covenant of peace, abide forever. Let your prayer this day be that you would look to the “Brightness of my Father’s glory, sunshine of my Father’s face, keep me ever trusting, resting, fill me with thy grace.”