I recently discovered the song “We Don’t Know” by The Strumbellas, and I really love it. The lyrics resonate with me, and the Mortal Kombat-themed video is a bonus.
“We Don’t Know” accurately describes the human condition. The song forces us to admit that “we don’t know if . . . we’ll find a way.” This is life.
Oh we don’t know the roads that we’re heading down
We don’t know if we’re lost, that we’ll find a way
We don’t know if we leave, will we make it home
We don’t know, there’s hope, then we’ll be okay
Oh we don’t know the roads that we’re heading down
We don’t know if we’re lost, that we’ll find a way
We don’t know if we leave, will we make it home
We don’t know, there’s hope, then we’ll be okay(Google)
How does one cope with the haunting truth of “We Don’t Know”? In the song, hope provides the antidote. This point is reinforced in the music video when the protagonist “Hope” defeats “Lord Doom.”
But, hope in itself is vacuous. Is it just a cheerful emotion? No, it must be connected to some objective reality or being. In what do we hope?
The author of Ecclesiastes examined all the hopes and comforts that the world offers and found them to be meaningless. We toil. We store away. We plan. All that we have could be lost in a quick stroke of fate. “Time and chance” happen to us all.
The purpose of the Heidelberg Catechism is to rightly order our hope. The opening question is: What is your only comfort (or hope)? The answer, of course, is that the Christian places her only comfort (or hope) in belonging to God. This is the only hope that will defeat Lord Doom.
We may gain all the riches of the world. We may lose everything. We may have many sons. We may have none.
If there is [true] hope, then we’ll be okay.
Tyler Dale Gaastra 