After a lengthy bout with despair, severe depression, and suicide attempts, writer and poet William Cowper (1731–1800) discovered comfort in God’s providence, which led him to write “Shining out of Darkness” . . .

I’ve been giving a lot of thought these days to the subject of God’s will. While engaged in a study of that issue recently, I came across a term we rarely use or read these days: providence. The root meaning of providence is “foresight . . . to see in advance” or “to provide for.” But those definitions could leave us with too shallow an understanding. Providence contains far more than a passive reference to God’s foreknowledge.

The longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize that we really don’t know what each new day may bring. A phone call can come in the middle of the night shattering our joy. Suddenly everything changes. It’s amazing what a knock at the door can bring or what the opening of a letter can do.

Adam didn’t assist Eve. She really wasn’t concerned about him either. Both got busy and whipped up a self-made cover-up. And (can you believe it?) they attempted to hide from the Lord God. Of course, you can believe it! To this day it’s humankind’s favorite game . . . even though we lose every time we play it.

To do that with “self,” we must go back, way back, to that ancient scene pictured for us in the second and third chapters of Genesis: the garden of Eden. What a super spot! Beautiful beyond description, a perfect, pollution-free atmosphere, luxurious foliage, fragrant flowers, crystal-clear water—that garden would make Tahiti look like a pigsty by comparison.