What "The Best Is Yet To Be" actually means

[I wrote this on 1 Mar 2018 and was first published on facebook.com]

In 1859, Edward FitzGerald published his translation of a long Persian poem by a prominent Sufi mystic, and his book would be known as the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Astronomer Poet of Persia". In FitzGerald's interpretation (later to be disputed by other academics), Omar Khayyam was extolling the hedonistic pleasures of food, sex and wine, the importance of living for today due to the uncertainties of tomorrow, and questions religion and traditional morality. The book became immensely popular in both UK and the USA, amidst a zeitgeist which included the publishing of Darwin's "Origin of Species", and a modernist worldview emerging from the scientific boom of the Enlightenment.

In this backdrop, many believed Robert Browning wrote "Rabbi ben Ezra" in 1864 as a counterpoint to FitzGerald's "Omar Khayyam", adopting a historically respected Jewish rabbi as his mouthpiece, just as FItzGerald adopted a Muslim mystic as his. This is the first stanza of Browning's poem:

"Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'' "

My dear friends who celebrate the institution known as Anglo-Chinese School today. Take a moment to reflect why the second line of Browning's poem was adopted to be your school motto. Certainty it hopes to instill Browning's prudence and rejection of hedonism among ACS students. But more so than that, Browning's deep theological point was that we can reject a hopeless wanton hedonism because we have a hope for tomorrow. An eschatological hope. We were born for heaven ("the last of life for which the first was made"), and instead of fearing the uncertainty of tomorrow, we can trust in God's sovereignty and his eventual victory.

"The Best Is Yet To Be" not because talented and resourceful ACS students will bring about a utopia with their hands. It is because God will bring it about with HIS hands. And it is precisely because of that that ACS boys and girls have hope, that their lives have meaning, and that they can live in obedience to pursue the will of a living and sovereign God.