“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” i have said this often but wasn’t sure where it came from; so i did what everyone does when they want to learn new information, i googled it. You know what i found? An amazing poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. Here is the stanza in which this oft` repeated line lays:
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
The poem sheds light on the mental state of Burns, who at the time was only 26 years old. He had a lot going for him, popular, young, well respected, yet still in this and the closing stanza we find a man with a bleak outlook and little hope of change. The author of the biography that i read made this observation, “Not at all what one might expect from a young man of twenty-six, supposedly so popular with the lassies, and with his whole life ahead of him, but nevertheless expressing sentiments with which many of us today can easily relate.”
It seems that we do live in a world that in~spite of its many advantages, technologies, entertainments and beauty, we suffer from a lack of, for a lack of a better term, hope. Hope for a future that is better than ones present.
Let me encourage us with this, there is hope, life can get better, and our choice to choose joy and hope over sadness and despair is ours to make. Psalm 65:5 & 78:7 gives a look into true hope…
“You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior. You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas.”
“So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.”
Finally, Matthew writes, “And his name [Jesus] will be the hope of all the world.”
There is HOPE, You are Loved,
cj
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