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Malachi 4 (The Birth of John Foretold)

22 Nov

The above image is from Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grown-Ups compiled by Ned Bustard. The Image is called “Intertestamental Angel” and was created by Matthew Clark.

4 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says, “The day of judgment is coming, burning like a furnace. On that day the arrogant and the wicked will be burned up like straw. They will be consumed—roots, branches, and all.

2 “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. 3 On the day when I act, you will tread upon the wicked as if they were dust under your feet,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

4 “Remember to obey the Law of Moses, my servant—all the decrees and regulations that I gave him on Mount Sinai for all Israel.

5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Dear God, I was wanting to tap into something more artsy this morning as I prayed to you. I was listening to some secular country music as I showered, and sometimes something in those songs will touch me, but nothing was hitting. Just a lot of sad people in broken relationships. Why do I like those songs so much when I am in a joyous marriage? I don’t know. Perhaps they tap into that insecure boy who grew up listening to them all those years ago. My wife and I have a joke that I like drinking songs, but I don’t drink. It’s a hazy mystery that a therapist could probably help me unlock.

Anyway, I sat down at this desk this morning, and I saw one of my favorite artistic scriptural resources. I found this book years ago at a retreat at Laity Lodge. I have found a lot of value in looking at an artist’s rendition of a Bible story and then looking to see what she or he displayed in their art that I might have missed in my own reading.

So this morning, as I prepare for Advent, I was drawn to this passage and art from Malachi. It’s the last communication the Protestant Bible gives us before John and Jesus will be born 400 years later. First, let me stop and think about that. It was 404 years ago the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock. So it’s easy to look back over 2,000 to 2,500 years and put 400 years into perspective, but when I zoom in and think of our own time, 400 years ago is 1624 A.D. Four hundred years from now is 2424 A.D. That’s a lot of time to pass between messages from you. I measure time in days, weeks, and months. You measure it in years, decades, and centuries. A thousand years truly is as a day to you! It’s amazing this book from Malachi was even kept and remembered that long.

With all that said, I want to spend a little time preparing for Jesus. Preparing for this Christmas season. The Lent I spent with you in the spring was a special time. Advent should probably be the same.

Matthew Clark’s image of the “Intertestamental Angel” is seemingly pretty simple. Let me see if there is anything remarkable I can pull from his rendition of this story:

  • Angels. I forget about angels all of the time. One of the country songs I did hear this morning that made me think about you was “Broken Halos” by Chris Stapleton. He mentioned angels coming down “to help us on our way.” It made me think of the Nancy French book Ghosted: An American Story when she described her in-laws praying for her infant son in the NICU, and asking for an angel to guard him. Later, when he was about three years old, before they had told him about his time in the NICU as an infant, he told her over breakfast about a dream he had of himself in a bubble, alone and reaching for a pacifier that was just out of reach. He was describing her memory of his NICU incubator. But then he said he wasn’t alone. Buzz Lightyear was there…well, not Buzz, but he was big like Buzz. And he was comforting him and telling him he wasn’t alone. The angel was, indeed, there. I just got chills even typing this again. Oh, Father, how I humbly worship you.
  • Wings.
  • The halo around the angel that a lot of Catholic art uses to represent someone is at least a saint.
  • The angel has his arm extended, but we cannot tell if he is pointing, directly, calming.
  • Clark has represented the fire of judgment behind the wings. Is the angel’s arm dividing those who go there and those who don’t?

Bustard’s description of the image:

The fires of judgment are burning hotter than in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, but the healing wings of the angel are extended to offer protection for those who fear the Lord. This print is one half of a diptych, and with its other half form one work of art to help convey the idea that the Old and New Testaments form one story.

As I read back over the passage, verse 6 is interesting, and I wonder what it really means:

6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

This could be as simple as familial parents and children, but this feels more generational to me in this context. Respecting the faith and life of those who came before me in the faith. Living my life so that I might use it for what you need the future generations to have from it.

Father, Advent is coming. Jesus is coming. Prepare my heart for it this season. Fill me with love. Fill me with joy. Fill me with celebration. There is so much to do over the next six weeks. It is my busiest season at work. But it is also my biggest opportunity to love others well. To let your love flow through me. Help me to do that, oh, Lord! Help me to love you well.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on November 22, 2024 in Malachi

 

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Luke 13:10-21

29 Oct

10 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!

14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16 This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”

17 This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did.

18 Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? 19 It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.”

20 He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like? 21 It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

Luke 13:10-21

Dear God, the daily Gospel reading for today was just verse 18-21, but that would be taking them out of context. They are actually linked to this story about the healing of someone on the Sabbath. So the part about how the “Kingdom of God,” your Kingdom, grows like a tiny seed into a tree or yeast working through flower is tied to the shame of those who were leading your church at the time. So Jesus wasn’t only talking about your growing within and influencing the world, but he was also talking about Kingdom growing within and influencing the established church. In Jesus’s context, that would ultimately mean Christianity transforming Judaism. It didn’t abolish it, obviously. But it grew. It also grew into the world, but it started with transforming the established church itself.

Of course, your seeds and yeast also grow in our individual hearts. The roots of the seeds break through the clay of my heart to find some soil. And then they grow. The yeast breaks through the dense dough of my heart and helps it so spread out and be free to grow. But I have to let it. I have to put myself in a position to receive the seeds and the nourishment. I have to try to weed my soil and clear out the rocks. I have to tend my heart so that your Kingdom might grow within it.

Father, Laity Lodge had a philosophy of the world being influence by the church and the church being influenced by the individual, and the individual being influenced by you. It starts with this basic relationship. Our individual relationships with you. How do we put ourselves close to you? How do we make sure our hearts are fertile soil for you? Show me if there is anything I need to be doing today that will prepare the way of the Lord in my own heart. And then show me how to share that with others.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on October 29, 2024 in Luke

 

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Laity Lodge Men’s Retreat – Morning 1

12 Jan

Dear God, I’m at a men’s retreat with my dad and brother-in-law (and about 50 other men), and I’m trying to be very present in it. I want to know if there is anything you have for me out of this weekend.

I took a bike ride yesterday when I first got here.

As I sat at the top of “Circle Bluff” for almost an hour and tried to be present in worshipping you, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to, basically, clear my head of anything I think might be on the agenda for the week and just enter your presence. So that’s what I’m going to do.

The speaker this weekend is just going to talk about Philippians. I think he is going to give us an overview of all four chapters in four different sessions. I’m excited about just getting some Bible teaching. I hear sermons, but I don’t often just get straight Bible teaching from an educated expert. I think I’m going to enjoy that. As I think about it, I probably should have brought a pad and paper for notes. Maybe I’ll take this keyboard and my phone and sit in the back at a table and type up my thoughts as he speaks.

One thing I also found last night was that I spoke to some men who just seemed to need to talk. One lost his 99-year-old mother about three weeks ago. Another lost a father a couple of years ago who had lived with him for the last 14 years of his life. I felt like you were using me just to listen as I visited with both of them. So I hope I can be that for people too, including my dad and brother-in-law. And if there’s anything I need to share and there is someone out there you have provided to be your ears for me, help me to discerningly find them.

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, help me to enter into your presence. Help me to be your hands and feet. Help me to worship you and then love others this weekend. And give me this weekend what you have for me so that I might be the man you need me to be in the world where you have planted me.

I pray all of this in your name,

Amen

 
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Posted by on January 12, 2024 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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Water Stories

16 Jun

Dear God, I was looking at a list of upcoming retreats at Laity Lodge this evening and I came across this description of a retreat

Water is one of the most important of scripture’s recurring symbols. As we work our way through the beginning of the Bible and read about the watery chaos depths of creation, the flood of judgment, and Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea, we begin to see that water is associated with chaos as well as cleansing, death as well as deliverance. Mark’s gospel takes up this symbol-theme in creative and sometimes astounding ways. This weekend retreat will undertake a close reading of three different scenes of Jesus and the disciples in a boat on the sea (Mark 4, 6, and 8) to see what they might teach us about following Jesus through the storms of life.

https://www.laitylodge.org/retreats/summer-2023-2/

It made me want to look at the stories in Mark 4, 6, and 8 to see what they were.

The first is Mark 4:1-2,35-41:

1 Once again Jesus began teaching by the lakeshore. A very large crowd soon gathered around him, so he got into a boat. Then he sat in the boat while all the people remained on the shore. 2 He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one…

35 As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” 36 So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). 37 But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

The second story is Mark 6:45-56:

45 Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethsaida, while he sent the people home. 46 After telling everyone good-bye, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

47 Late that night, the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on land. 48 He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. He intended to go past them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the water, they cried out in terror, thinking he was a ghost. 50 They were all terrified when they saw him.

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage! I am here!” 51 Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed, 52 for they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in.

53 After they had crossed the lake, they landed at Gennesaret. They brought the boat to shore 54 and climbed out. The people recognized Jesus at once, 55 and they ran throughout the whole area, carrying sick people on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 Wherever he went—in villages, cities, or the countryside—they brought the sick out to the marketplaces. They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed.

The third is Mark 8:1-21, although this one is just a brief mention of being in the boat:

1 About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, 2 “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.”

4 His disciples replied, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”

5 Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”

“Seven loaves,” they replied.

6 So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. 7 A few small fish were found, too, so Jesus also blessed these and told the disciples to distribute them.

8 They ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. 9 There were about 4,000 men in the crowd that day, and Jesus sent them home after they had eaten. 10 Immediately after this, he got into a boat with his disciples and crossed over to the region of Dalmanutha.

11 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

12 When he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign.” 13 So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake.

14 But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. 15 As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

16 At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. 17 Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? 19 When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?”

“Twelve,” they said.

20 “And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”

“Seven,” they said.

21 “Don’t you understand yet?” he asked them.

As I look at these–especially the first two–I want to think about “following Jesus through the storms of life,” as the description of the retreat said. The first story is interesting because I’m not sure what the disciples should have done differently. If they had done it right, what would they have done? I’m not sure I’ve ever asked myself this question before. I’ve accepted their correction by Jesus for doing it incorrectly, but what would doing it correctly have looked like? I suppose they should have just sat and prayed. Maybe together. Maybe separately. Maybe holding hands. But I guess, in an ideal world, they would have simply let Jesus sleep and prayed. I suppose they could have sat and talked among themselves during the storm, assuming that as long as Jesus was with them they probably weren’t going to sink, but simple prayer would probably have sufficed. I guess the thing that made what they did really wrong was that they seemed to blame Jesus for their danger. They accused him of not caring.

I have a situation I need to deal with, and my first reaction was to sit and reason through the solution. I was fretting a bit. What will I do? How will I handle this? Will I survive it? Then I mentioned it to a friend and they reminded me that I needed to start with prayer. Wow! One of my biggest failings is that my first response is almost never to come to you in prayer. To bring my situation to you and ask for your Holy Spirit to guide me through it. I lean upon my own “wisdom,” such that it is, and I don’t lean on you.

The second story from Mark 6 is interesting because it does not include a rebuke from Jesus, but comfort. He was going to walk past them, but he saw they needed to know they were safe. I have to admit I’ve never really understood what the plan was here. How did they think he would catch up to them at Bethsaida? Would another group of disciples bring him in a boat? But as they were struggling, they saw him. They didn’t understand and they were scared, but he comforted them and told them to not be afraid and take courage. “I am here.” You are here. Yes, you are here. I can take courage. You are here.

The third story from Mark 8:1-21 isn’t like the other boat stories because the disciples aren’t in crisis. They just don’t understand what Jesus is telling them. I think it’s that I need to stop looking for new signs and just accept that Jesus is already at work all around me. You, Father, are at work all around me. You, Holy Spirit, are at work all around me. You, my Triune God, are at work all around me.

Father, I suppose when I combine the stories, that is the answer. You are here working whether I can see you at work or not. It’s amazing that the God of the universe (which seemingly is getting bigger and bigger than our minds can comprehend) is interested in my puny little life. My role is to worship you with all my heart and love my neighbor as myself. Seek you first and your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and then I will find the fruits of your Spirit growing in me. Sometimes you calm the storm, but other times you calm me. Either way, I have nothing to fear. Thank you.

I pray all of this under your authority and with so much gratitude,

Amen

 
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Posted by on June 16, 2023 in Mark

 

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Ezra 3:10-13

27 Sep

10 When the builders completed the foundation of the Lord’s Temple, the priests put on their robes and took their places to blow their trumpets. And the Levites, descendants of Asaph, clashed their cymbals to praise the Lord, just as King David had prescribed. 11 With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord:

“He is so good!
    His faithful love for Israel endures forever!”

Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had been laid.

12 But many of the older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. 13 The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.

Ezra 3:10-13

Dear God, this passage resonates with me today. I was listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast from Ascension Press this morning and this was one of the things Father Mike read. It took me back to five or six years ago when I was at a retreat at Laity Lodge. The leaders were talking about the rebuilding of the Temple, but he was telling the story from Haggai. One of the things Haggai told the builders was that this Temple would not be like the old one. It would be a new Temple. It might not be a grand and ostentatious as the first one, but it would be good and it would please you. At the time, things had really fallen apart for my family, and I felt your Holy Spirit say the same to me. You told me that I was obsessed with trying to go back and build the Temple in my life that I had ten years before. But that Temple was gone and destroyed. What I needed to do now was work with my wife to build a new Temple. To start over.

Over the years, that’s what we’ve tried to do, under your authority. And things are still not the perfect way we would want them. There are still deficiencies when I compare my life to the dreams I had for it. But the truth is, life is good. A couple of days ago, my wife and I were in our couples group from church and we were going around the circle and giving our “highs and lows” from the month since we last met. My wife said that just the enjoyment we are having in each other is a high for her. It’s one of the nicest and most affirming things I could have heard. Goodness knows I want to be everything you need me to be for her sake.

Father, Holy Spirit, there will come a day when the Temple my wife and I have currently build will take damage and maybe even be destroyed. I went to a funeral for a woman yesterday who left behind a husband of 55 years. That man is going to have to start building a new Temple. I came across some people over the last few days who lost children too young. They have new Temples to build. I have another friend who has seemingly averted getting a divorce, but now the long task of Temple building under your authority is ahead of them. I have another friend whose divorce will soon be final. He has a new Temple to build as well. So my prayer for these friends, for my wife, for me, for my children, and for the rest of my family is that we will go about building the Temples you have us to build. Temples that will glorify you and see your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Temples for our good, but also for your glory. Temples that will require us to be submitted to you and molded by you as we build them. Humble Temples that will point others to you and you alone as the God of the universe.

I pray this through the ultimate new Temple/Covenant, Jesus,

Amen

 
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Posted by on September 27, 2022 in Ezra

 

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10 Observations by Adam Neder: #1. The American religious landscape is changing quickly.

05 Sep

I was reading an article from the H.E.B. Foundation Magazine Echoes this morning, and I came across a description of a summer retreat led by Adam Neder. The retreat was titled “Faith in the Ruins.” A description of the retreat in the promotional material for it sums it up: “…as challenges multiply, as the church perfects the art of discrediting itself, as friends leave the faith, many Christians are feeling exhausted, disoriented, and discouraged. Some wonder how much longer they can stick with Christianity–or even if they want to.”

That’s where the 10 observations by Neder came in. I looked at them and thought I would do a series of prayer journals on the 10 observations the article mentioned Neder covered during the retreat.

#1. The American religious landscape is changing quickly.

Dear God, I know there is nothing new under the sun, and you’ve seen it all. But this shift in electronic media feels different. Number 3 is media so I don’t want to spend too much time on that thought today, but it’s the first thing that came to mind when I thought about the religious landscape changing quickly.

It’s funny. As I think of things that are changing in the “religious landscape,” I keep coming upon thoughts that are covered in the other points such as increased partisanship in the church. But what’s deeper? What is Satan doing at the foundation of the church to divide us? I think it comes down to a simple thing: discipleship and a pursued relationship with you is lacking for many, if not most self-professed Christians in America. We are simply treating religion like a philosophical position whose moral compass is rooted in our ideas of what we think you think about something instead of meditative prayer time spent repenting of our sins, seeking the wisdom of your Word (and I mean both scripture and the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice), and asking for your love to fill us and flow through us.

It in interesting that there are more self-professed Evangelicals in America (at least among White people) over the last six years, but fewer of them are in church. Their community is no longer found on Sunday morning, but at political rallies and on cable news. Pastors are either quitting or wanting to quit (or being discouraged to become pastors) at a higher rate given all of the division. Their congregations spend more time with cable news and on social media during the week than they spend in personal prayer and scripture. Again, I’m sliding into some of the other observations, but for me the foundation upon which they are all built is true discipleship.

Father, let it start with me. Help me to continue to sit here and hear your voice. Help me to share my love for you with others. Love them richly through me. Bring glory to your name through me. Help me to decrease so you can increase. Help us to know what it truly means to know you, repent before you, and extend the love we’ve received from you to others. Help us–help me–to be humble. Help me to extend grace and mercy.

I pray this through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection as part of the Triune God,

Amen

 
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Posted by on September 5, 2022 in Faith In Ruins: 10 Observations by Adam Neder, Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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God’s Inspirations

23 May

Dear God, I was speaking to a group of youth yesterday about the nonprofit where I work and I talked about how you take small seeds of ideas and grown them. In 1986, you led a woman to start doing some medical clinics with some missionaries in Northern Mexico. Six years later, you inspired her to start doing a one-night-a-week free clinic for people in the town where she lived. Ten years later, you inspired her and others to build on that and create a facility that would be a medical home for people. Now, 17 years later, what started as going to Mexico to help some people in 1986 has turned into a four-day-a-week clinic that has medical, dental, and mental health counseling services and a million dollar budget. Your blessing has been obvious, and I am grateful that your presence is still there. I wanted to show these high school students that big things can start from small seeds. They just need faith and patience.

I saw this video about the H.E. Butt Family Foundation Camp this morning. It made me think of the same thing—100 years ago a poor boy in Kerrville, Texas, promised himself that if he ever had enough money he would give kids an opportunity to experience nature. As he grew, he grew the family’s general store into a huge supermarket chain called H-E-B. In the early 50s, he and his wife found nearly 2,000 acres to purchase. From there they built camps for children and eventually an adult lodge for retreats. I am one of the beneficiaries of the seed you planted in his mind 100 years ago.

The H. E. Butt Family Foundation has impacted my life more than anything else. If you take away Howard Butt, Sr.’s vision and followthrough on that vision, I don’t know where I am right now.

  1. They hired my dad as a part-time bookkeeper in 1969 when he was in the Army and needing supplemental income to support his family.
  2. Nine years later, when my parents were separated, the man who hired him all those years ago invited him and my mom to a marriage retreat at which my father prayed to accept Christ and my after which my parents got back together.
  1. When I was 12, my dad came home from a retreat there and told me about a man he had med, Henry Parrish, who coached tennis. Through Henry, I got involved in Fellowship of Christian Athletes which had a huge impact on how I came to be a discipling Christian.
  1. When I was 19, I was a camp counselor at one of the youth camps and met my wife there.
  1. I have been to numerous retreats over the last 27 years, and there have been times you have completely inspired me, including the retreat in April 2000 when you inspired me to start this prayer journal.

All of this started because someone had the seed of an inspiration. He didn’t think about how you would use that ranch for discipleship development or anything like that. He just wanted to offer kids the opportunity to experience nature. You took it from there.

Father, help men to heed your little nudgings and inspirations. Help me to not miss the seeds you want me to plant or that you want to plant in me. Give me the faith and the patience to do the work that is in front of me and then watch you grow it into what you have for it to be.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2019 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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Emails to God – “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

06 Jan

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (Text by Robert Robinson; adapted by Margaret Clarkson)

Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise his name—I’m fixed upon it—

Name of God’s redeeming love

 

Hither to Thy love has blest me;

Thou hast brought me to this place

And I know Thy hand will bring me

Safely home by Thy good grace

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Bought me with His precious blood.

 

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above

Amen

I am at a retreat tonight and the rest of the weekend out at Laity Lodge. We aren’t suppose to have Internet access, but I am staying in a place that accidentally provided it (of course, I helped it along by finding a modem and getting it plugged in so that the Internet could start working). So I feel like this is a great power I have, to access the Internet, and I should use it for good and not for evil. I will do my best to stay away from ESPN3 and try to stay focused on God. To that end, I thought I might use my Emails to God blog to share some of what I experience here.

At the retreat tonight we were singing this song. It is one of my two favorite hymns. My favorite is “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” The place where I am staying has the old Word Hymnal that I used to sell in my days of working for Word, and would you know that my two favorite hymns are hymns numbers 1 and 2 in the hymnal—and in the right order at that. What are the odds?

But I digress. Sometimes when I am singing a song and I feel like it isn’t hitting me like it should I stop and try to put myself in the mindset of the write while they wrote the lyric. They sat there with nothing and looked for words that expressed how they felt. What then can I tell about how they felt at the time by the words they chose?

I did this with this song tonight, and it really opened it up to me even more. The last verse is too easy to relate to, so I won’t even deal with that except to say that I heard once that the writer of this song, Robert Robinson, struggled with his faith throughout his life. Here is a quote from Wikipedia (so it must be true): “An unverifiable story is widely told of Robinson that one day while riding in a stagecoach a lady asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. He responded, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.”

But I digress again. I want to think about the first verse. There is a lot here:

  • “Come Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace” – Again, thinking about his mindset when he was writing this, I got the image of someone who so badly wanted for his worship of God to be adequate. Do I have that feeling as I worship before God?
  • “Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise” – Because God has given me so much love and mercy He deserves for me to get this right.
  • “Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above” – I know that angels know how to sing to God. Teach me how to sing like the angels.
  • “Praise His name—I’m fixed upon it—Name of God’s redeeming love” – My worship is to focus on Him and His Name—really focus.

 

This is good stuff. If you are so inclined, do your own for the other two verses. Find something in here from God that you’ve never seen before.

 
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Posted by on January 6, 2012 in Hymns and Songs

 

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