V: Verse

The characters in Across the Stars quote Scripture a lot. Sara Watson quotes Psalm 23 when she is scared, Charles quotes Ecclesiastes 3 before they go into battle, Felix quotes from Ephesians 6 to his father (about the duties of a father), but the real theme verse of Across the Stars is Psalm 37:5: “Commit thy way unto the Lord, and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”

When I was writing Across the Stars, the two reference works I used the most were the dictionary and Cruden’s Concordance. When Felix, Charles, and Sara were planning their first battle, I decided they needed a “trust in the Lord” verse to quote. So I looked through the concordance for all the verses containing the word trust. Now, I had read Psalms before, many times, but this verse had never really stuck out to me. “Commit thy way unto the Lord, and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” I loved this verse and thought it fit perfectly. My characters did commit their way unto the Lord, and, well, the story would not be the same if they hadn’t.

This verse really is true, and I’m not just saying that because it’s in the Bible. In my personal experience it is true. When I was little, some people came and played the violin at our church. From that day forward, I wanted more than anything to learn to play the violin. I constantly prayed that God would give me an opportunity, I begged my parents for lessons, and every time there seemed to be an opportunity, it was deemed too expensive. Well, finally, I just gave it over to God. I asked  Him that if it was His will He would provide me with an opportunity to learn to play the violin and if it was not His will to help me be content with not learning. It was after that a friend offered to teach me to play. That was about a year and a half ago. Now, I wouldn’t change how it happened for anything. Not only did it give me an opportunity to spend time with a friend I hadn’t even known a few years earlier and enabled me to learn faster than I would have if I had started when I was younger, it taught me a valuable lesson. God’s way is the best way, His timing is better than mine, and if I submit to Him things turn out better than they would have if I had had things my way. I’m not saying that if you commit your way unto God you will always get what you want, if that was true, I would have a baby brother by now, but that if you commit your way unto God, if you submit yourself to His will, things will turn out better than they would if you insisted on your own way. After all, God knows what’s best for us.