Not So in Haste, My Heart! (Dolomite Chant)

Text by: Bradford Torrey 1875

Tune: Dolomite Chant by: Joseph T Cooper 1877

Dolomite Chant: https://youtu.be/wWXeKyMVbcc

1. Not so in haste my heart!
   Have faith in God, and wait;
   although he linger long,
   he never comes too late.

   2. He never cometh late;
   he knoweth what is best;
   vex not thyself in vain;
   until he cometh, rest.

   3. Until he cometh, rest,
   nor grudge the hours that roll;
   the feet that wait for God
   are soonest at the goal.

   4. Are soonest at the goal
   that is not gained with speed;
   then hold thee still, my heart,
   for I shall wait his lead.

Isaiah 30:15   For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.

Psalm 62:5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.

“Have faith! If only you had enough faith, God would grant your every wish and need!” What a misunderstanding! Faith is not about believing in a wish granting deity who wants you to ask him to fulfill you every whim.

Faith is being still, and knowing there is a God who reigns over His creation. Just because this reign doesn’t fulfill our current notion as to what a holy reign should be here on Earth, is not God’s problem.  Feeling this way reflects the childishness, not childlikeness, of our faith. Rather faith is a patient acceptance of God’s will and efficacy in this world and our lives. Our expectation should be that His will, not our own, will be fulfilled.

I have had to meet this challenge in my own personal faith journey.  Crippling arthritis settled into my hands just as I entered semi-retirement. I hoped to finally have the time to devote to my playing as I had always dreamed. I had told myself for years, “When I finally am done working, then I will get to really dig into this stack of music…” Circumstances not of my own choosing, brought this date forward much quicker than I anticipated. I took a breath and began to settle into a routine which involved much more practice and performing than I had been able to do for decades. But within months, I lost much of the use of my left hand and went through major reconstructive surgery and complications. This was followed a couple of years later by my right hand.

It would have been so easy to sink into despair and recriminations toward God. Why bring me to the point I had dreamed of my entire life, only to so cruelly snatch it away? However, I also saw God’s guiding hand throughout the whole ordeal. Due to the economic collapse after 2008/9 I had to close my business in 2012, just before all of this began. If I still had the stresses and challenges of running a large piano rebuilding business in difficult economic times, while trying to recover from these severe complications, I shudder to think how much worse things could have been.

I had many prosperous years in my business before this, which allowed me to heal and recover without the need to work. I saw the story of Joseph’s work in Egypt as analogous to my own experience. The years of plenty were in preparation for a coming famine, not an opportunity to live in a libertine manner.

This year’s devotional project is largely driven by my faith in God’s sovereignty in my life. I face this daily as I work in 30 minute intervals before I have to stop to let the pain subside. I struggle with being patient in God’s will. His will is not that I can fulfill my life long dreams, but rather than I am obedient, waiting for his leading.