All Is Well

Today's special Christmas song is All Is Well, from Michael W. Smith's first yuletide album simply entitled Christmas.  It has long been one of my favorite songs about the birth of Jesus, even though you will notice that MWS seems to be missing from the singers.  This song is all about the message.

People have been using the phrase "all is well" to describe situations and conditions for hundreds of years.  In colonial days the Town Crier used to announce "11 o'clock and all is well!"  Of course he didn't really mean it; he simply wanted to assure the villagers they were not being attacked.  There were still things that were not well.  In the movie Animal House there is a scene where the town is involved in a riot, and a very young Kevin Bacon stands in the middle of the street yelling "All is well!!!"  It wasn't.  And how many times has a politician looked directly into a TV camera and announced that "all is well" when in fact things were falling apart?  The phrase carries very little weight in our world, because all is such a big word and we know that something, somewhere is not well.

It has been nearly 4 years since my sin caused my world (and that of my family) to literally fall apart.  In the first year I was convinced that "all" would ever be "well" again.  During my quiet time one morning around Christmas of 2007 it occurred to me that I was focused on the wrong "all."  It was quite true that my life would never be the same again.  It was also true that there were people I had hurt and disappointed who seemed unlikely to ever forgive me.  But God already had.  God had sent his Son to earth through a very confused young woman who must have been certain all was NOT well- and yet it was.  And as I thought about that story, this song came to mind.  The birth of the Christ-child was God's announcement to everyone that "all is well."  And when God says it, "all" really means ALL!  Life will never be perfect, but how can it be anything but "well" when you are secure in the knowledge that the God of the universe sent His Son to save you- and ME!  And that is what the song is all about.

Life is still hard.  Things go wrong.  People disappoint us.  But because of Jesus, there is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to make Him love you less.  I don't know about you, but to me, that truly means all is well...