What "The Best Is Yet to Come" means
This Nicole Nordeman song and her "The Best Chapter Begins" share a theological sibling relationship, but they are written for different thresholds. This one is for the forward-facing young, specifically the student in transition, graduating, launching, stepping into an uncertain future with more questions than answers. The phrase "the best is yet to come" is common enough in culture that it risks feeling like a bumper sticker, but Nordeman gives it roots. She grounds it not in optimism about outcomes but in faith about the character of God who holds the future. The difference is significant. Optimism about outcomes can be disappointed. Faith in God's character cannot, at least not on the terms the song sets. The song sits at 80 BPM, a gentle mid-tempo that keeps it from feeling either triumphalist or heavy. G major gives it a natural brightness without forcing cheerfulness. Nordeman writes for real humans, people with fear and grief mixed into their hope, and this song does not pretend the future is guaranteed to be easy. It holds hope and uncertainty together and names that tension as the normal condition of faith moving forward.
What this song does in a room
It gives a graduating class, a confirmation group, or any community marking a youth transition something to sing that they will actually remember. Generic send-off songs tend to fade fast. Songs that name the specific emotional texture of a threshold, excitement threaded through fear, hope threading through grief at what is being left behind, tend to stick. This song names that texture without resolving it too quickly. The congregation holding it with the young person being sent out becomes a chorus of witnesses saying: we believe this about your future even when you are not sure. That communal voice matters at a threshold moment. It is not just the song that is being given. It is the community's faith in the young person's future, which is sometimes more than they can offer themselves on the day of launch.
What this song is saying about God
Nordeman's song carries a specific claim: God is already in the future. That sounds simple, but it has real weight. The anxiety of transition is often the anxiety of moving toward a place where we cannot see whether God will be there. The song refuses that fear at the root. The best is yet to come not because we have calculated the odds but because the same God who has been present in every previous chapter is already present in the next one. This is a forward-facing version of the same theology that drives the retrospective gratitude songs. If God was faithful behind, God is faithful ahead. The temporal direction flips; the character of God does not.
Scriptural backbone
Romans 8:28 is the spine of this song: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." The "all things" is doing the work. Not just the good things. Not just the anticipated things. The unknown future things too. Jeremiah 29:11 echoes here again, as it does for much of Nordeman's life-transitions catalog. Proverbs 3:5-6 also resonates: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." The student standing at the edge of an unknown future is exactly the person this proverb was written for. The song gives them a way to hold that proverb in their body, as a melody they can return to, not just a verse they have memorized.
How to use it in a service
This song belongs at graduation Sundays, senior recognition services, confirmation services, and any moment when a community is sending its young people forward. It can also work during a series on calling or vocation when the congregation is being invited to think about their own forward-facing faith. Position it at the high point of a transitional service, after the spoken recognition and prayer, before the final benediction. It works as the song that sends people out rather than the song that gathers them in. The forward momentum of the lyric suits that position well. For congregations with a significant student ministry, this song is worth teaching in a student service before using it at a graduation Sunday, so the students already know it when the moment arrives.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
The emotional temperature in the room at graduation services is complex. Some students are jubilant. Some are quietly terrified. Some are grieving the end of something familiar. The song works across those emotional states, but only if you do not flatten them. Do not over-perform the hope. Let the song hold the complexity. Your job is to model a posture that has room for both the brightness of the major key and the weight of the moment. If you push too hard toward celebration, the students who are scared will feel unseen. If you pull too heavy toward solemnity, the ones who are truly excited will disengage. Trust the song to hold the tension and let your role be steady and warm, not directive.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
Guitar: acoustic as the foundation, with a gentle electric adding light color in the upper register. Nothing heavy. The song's emotional complexity calls for a lighter touch. Keys: bright piano, not pads alone. The major key brightness needs to come from somewhere, and piano delivers that without forcing it. Drums: a medium-energy groove that can swell slightly at the chorus without overwhelming the verse's more reflective quality. The dynamic shape across verse-chorus-verse is important here: let the chorus open up a bit, then return to intimacy for the next verse. Background vocalists: age-appropriate if possible. If you have student vocalists in your ministry, this is a meaningful moment to feature one or two of them. Having peers sing the hope into the congregation adds a layer of authenticity that adult vocalists alone cannot provide. FOH: a clean, open mix. Room to breathe. This song should feel like standing in a doorway with sunlight on the other side, spacious rather than compressed.