Let Not Your Heart be Troubled (HT: Jill Carratini)

Jill Carratini continues to be my favorite author in my favorite daily e-devotional: Ravi Zacharias’s “Slice of Infinity”. She is a careful thinker, a lover of God, and a profoundly gifted writer.

I urge you to read her recent essay, Let Not Your Hearts be Troubled. Let me tempt you with a mere snippet:

“The 1905 hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow” is one that has captured the hearts of many, reminding with simple assurance that we are not forgotten, nor alone …

The hymn is a poignant reminder that though we will find discouragement and loneliness, we were not intended to; and though we sometimes labor to find our sight in shadows, we will one day see in full. We long for home because at present we are not home. Yet God’s careful eye is on even the sparrow, God’s Spirit on our trail, willing that one day we shall get there …

What must Christ be like if he can tell us not to let our hearts be troubled on the eve of his own violent death? Who is this God we follow, this God who knows every sparrow and hair on our heads?

In fact, Civilla Martin’s hymn was inspired by a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden with illness for almost twenty years. Confined to a wheel chair, Mr. Doolittle was also fraught with adversity. Yet despite their afflictions, they offered inspiration and comfort to all who knew them. Inquiring as to the source of their hope in the midst of such grief and struggle, Mrs. Doolittle’s reply was simple in its promise of things present and sublime in its reach of things to come: ‘His eye is on the sparrow,’ she said, ‘and I know God watches me.’

Thank you, Ms. Carratini, for helping us to know and trust God.