When the Music Follows the Maestro

In 1887, at a Dwight L. Moody evangelistic meeting in Brockton, Massachusetts, a young man stood during the testimony time. He was not eloquent. He had no dramatic conversion story to share. He simply said, "I'm not quite sure about everything, but I'm going to trust, and I'm going to obey."

Daniel Towner, the musician leading worship that evening, was so struck by those unrehearsed words that he scribbled them down and mailed them to Presbyterian minister John Sammis. From that single, halting testimony came one of the church's most enduring hymns: Trust and Obey. "Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."

What arrests me about that story is what the young man did not say. He did not say he understood everything. He did not say he felt ready. He said he would trust, and he would obey — as if those two things were bound together like melody and rhythm, each incomplete without the other.

That is precisely the pattern Scripture gives us. Abraham set out not knowing where he was going. Moses approached Pharaoh with a stammer. Mary said, "Let it be to me according to Your word." Obedience rarely waits for full understanding. It steps forward on the strength of the One who calls.

The Almighty is not asking you to see the whole road. He is asking you to take the next step.