God Moves in a Mysterious Way

Our church bulletin each week lists the Psalms and hymns we'll be singing the next week. I often try to sit down at the piano and practice the alto part of each song. B. I. (Before illness,) the kids and I practiced together. It's a practical way to prepare ourselves for worship.

This Sunday being Easter I especially made a point to practice. After singing this week's songs I decided I wanted to memorize one of them. (I have a good deal of it memorized already, so it wasn't an overwhelming task.) Then last night, I decided I was going to post a couple of verses a day of the hymn on this blog. This morning (are you kidding, I don't get the computer until afternoon) I was reading the third Mitford book (by Jan Karon) and Father Kavanaugh recited two verses of this very hymn and asked his wife to guess who wrote it. I answered in my head before reading her answer. (That's always fun.) She had told him he couldn't recite a Wordsworth poem because he was always reciting them, so he recited something that William Cowper, a friend of Wordsworth wrote. He told her that the words often get mistaken for scripture.

Here's the first two verses of Cowper's "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" written in 1774. We sing it to a tune that was written in 1867 that has the melody in the tenor and does incredible justice to the words of the hymn:

"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will."

Signing off for today with visions of God riding the sea and treasuring up His bright designs. God rides upon the storm...doesn't get overtaken by them (even the yeast beast kind.) I really like the bright design I experienced today with my song and bookreading. The kindnesses He continually shows me never cease to amaze me.