Assurance in Uncertainty

The momentous events of these days come too swiftly to absorb, with the ever-threatening areas of eruption, and the impact of man’s launching out into unknown orbits. And to the tensions of these times, we sometimes react in one of two ways, each the opposite of the other: We sometimes seem to go about as usual, as if there were no newly threatening forces—or, we sometimes seem to brood, as if there were no satisfactory solution. But for such times—for all times, in fact—there are some essentials for the effective living of life. Ignoring what is happening isn’t one of them, and giving up isn’t another.
One of the essentials is learning to live with uncertainty. Every generation has had to live with its share of uncertainty, and there is ample evidence of it in the widely scattered ruins of fallen fortresses, and castles in picturesque decay, once thought to have commanded impregnable positions.
Always someone has made a better weapon. Always someone has devised a defense against that weapon, and always someone subsequently has made a yet more deadly weapon. Always when man has put too much of his trust in mere physical forces, someone always has outthought him or outfought him or outflanked him, or time has taken over and laid his efforts low. And so civilization has gone through its cycles of uncertainty.
And finally it comes down to this, does it not? —to faith and work—faith in the love and purpose and eternal promises of Him who made us in His image, and who gave us the gift of life; and work, in doing the very best we can, in using the intelligence and tangibles that He has given us, and in keeping His commandments.
Life moves so swiftly anyway; the years come and go so quickly, that we feel it timely to recall again a sentence that Thomas Carlyle wrote in a letter to John Carlyle: “The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once.”
And so, not ignoring facts, and not relaxing vigilance, but in earnest searching and seeking and working, and repenting, and doing all that can be done to the best of our ability, we can trust the Father of us all, who gave us life here, to give us life everlasting, with the possibilities of peace and progress and a sweetness of association with our loved ones, and all else that is earned.
And with this faith we can face all the events of life, in the assurance of this sentence from Emerson: “All I have seen, teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”