As a teenager, I was introduced to my first Alfred Hitchcock film. It was a Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day film entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much, and the movie introduced the song "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" to the world.
That song was running through my head recently just as I finished a very intriguing novel. The novel was far from the typical Christian fiction novel I typically enjoy reading – in fact, there was nothing "Christian" about it! But it stirred up in me some fascinating thoughts that definitely had spiritual significance.
Back to the song for a minute…the chorus is:
Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
Essentially, the point of the song is that there is no reason to worry because life is going to happen whether we like it or not. So, we might as well just be at “peace” about it! While the song in general is reflective of a naive, fluffy attitude towards life, there is some truth to it. We cannot see or control the future. Only God can. So, as Scripture indicates, there is nothing but harm found in worrying over the future, no matter where we are in the present.
But, as I ponder the song, I can’t help but think about the novel as well. In the novel, a young woman discovers that her husband, the man she loved passionately and then lost only two years into their marriage, was not at all who she thought he was. The majority of the book’s action occurs in flashbacks back to the trip where this young woman met her husband. He was a tour guide on a rather unusual European tour. With only a few exceptions, the stops on the tour were not the popular tourist stops, but were instead out of the way, obscure locations. Each stop related to some member of the same family, a family whose line extended across a span of 800 years. Only now, five years after the tour, does this young woman discover that there was much more to the stories than simply interesting history. The addition of just a handful of clues opens up a whole new perspective on the stories, revealing to her that the stories were actually her husband’s past. The truth opens before her that her husband was an immortal and that each story revealed a portion of his past life. Through every stop of the tour, he was telling her who he was. But, she didn’t see it until another man came knocking at her door, revealing to her the one clue she truly needed to begin unraveling the mystery.
So, how does that tie in to the song? Or to anything worth discussing? Well, the song says, “The future’s not ours to see.” And that is so true. It is God’s. But is our faith really challenged only because we cannot see the future? Could it be possible that, like the young woman of the novel, much of our struggle with faith occurs because we do not clearly see our past or present either?
Just like the heroine of the story, truth is all around us. Every mystery is clear when we see it with the eyes of God. The problem is that we never see all God sees. There are certain bits of information hidden from us – bits that keep us from that perfect clarity. It might be one little thing that would make a jumbled puzzle come together clearly in our hearts and minds. But, for whatever reason, our perfect heavenly Father knows that it’s not good for us to see. There are things I look at with pain, seeing no way that God can be glorified through them. None of them are future things. With the future, there is still hope. The past cannot be changed. And, I look and wonder how God can truly be glorified through some of the things in my past or even in my present. How can those prayers truly be answered? But, He knows!
In the novel, the young woman finds that puzzle piece, and everything begins to makes sense. In our spiritual walks, however, we don’t need a puzzle piece. We don’t need a clue. We need faith. Not just for our future, but for our past and present as well. The whole picture is really not ours to see – it is God’s. Sometimes He reveals enough to appease our curiosity and settle our minds. Other times He keeps it all hidden. Either way, we never truly see everything. But regardless of how much He does or does not reveal, real peace comes when our faith rests in Him, knowing that His choices are always perfect, His decisions are always right, and His glory is always the result, no matter what we see.
Whatever He wills has been, is, and will be. Because of that, we can go through life in true peace.
Not Quite Ordinary 