“Forever” by Third Day
I see a hand reaching out to help me
But I don’t understand all of your ways
You are still the Potter and I am just the clay
And though I know at times I am too proud
To reach for You, to help me out
And if I waited on myself to get it right
I would be waiting here forever
Your grace is never going to change
Your faith will always remain
Your love is the same yesterday, today, and forever
I see a world looking for an answer but I don’t know what for
When will we realize that we’re sinners in the hands of a loving God who came
And died and wants to set us free
Oh how he longs to be with you and me
And if we waited on the truth to change
We would be waiting here forever
Your grace is never going to change
Your faith will always remain
Your love is the same yesterday, today, and forever
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brian Holland / Freddie Gorman / Lamont Herbert Dozier
Dear God, this is almost a continuation from yesterday’s prayer. It plays off of Hebrews 10:31
31 It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
When I read this for the first time this week a few days ago, it made me think of the line in the second verse of this song that says, “We are sinners in the hands of a loving God who came and died to set us free.” I believe this line from the song is also a twist on the sermon by Jonathan Edwards in the 1740s called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Reading the Wikipedia description of this sermon, I found this diary entry from pastor Stephen Williams, who was in attendance:
[B]efore the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying out through the whole house — “What shall I do to be saved?” “Oh, I am going to hell!” “Oh what shall I do for a Christ?” and so forth — so that the minister was obliged to desist. [The] shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing. After some time of waiting, the congregation were still, so that a prayer was made by Mr. Wheelock, and after that we descended from the pulpit and discoursed with the people, some in one place and some in another. And amazing and astonishing: the power [of] God was seen and several souls were hopefully wrought upon that night, and oh the cheerfulness and pleasantness of their countenances that received comfort. Oh that God would strengthen and confirm [their new faith]! We sang a hymn and prayed, and dispersed the assembly.
I bolded part of his diary because that is probably the most amazing thing I’ve seen in myself and others when they come to faith in Jesus and accept your grace through him: “cheerfulness and pleasantness of their countenance that received comfort.” I’ll be frank, Father. I don’t know how I feel about threatening people with hell in order to get them to accept you, but I do know that whenever anyone makes that decision regardless of the motive, the relief and forthcoming joy after that relief is palpable.
So back to this song, for the last two days I’ve had it going in my head when I woke up in the morning. It’s been nice, and I’ve liked it. So I thought I would look at it a little and spend some time with it this morning in your presence.
Here’s the first verse again:
I see a hand reaching out to help me
But I don’t understand all of your ways
You are still the Potter and I am just the clay
And though I know at times I am too proud
To reach for You, to help me out
And if I waited on myself to get it right
I would be waiting here forever
So I truly don’t understand all of your ways. I never will this side of heaven. I can’t figure out the future. I can’t dictate what will happen in the next moment, much less the following years. Sure, I can influence by my actions, but there is no way I can see how the dominoes will fall. I also know that I cannot undo all of the things I’ve done wrong–to you or to others. I simply need grace and to learn from those mistakes so I won’t do it again.
I see a world looking for an answer but I don’t know what for
When will we realize that we’re sinners in the hands of a loving God who came
And died and wants to set us free
Oh how he longs to be with you and me
And if we waited on the truth to change
We would be waiting here forever
This is just kind of an exasperated moment. I think the writer is even exasperated with himself. He uses the collective “we” in the second line. But we do. We pursue happiness. We pursue self-fulfillment. We pursue peace. We pursue what essentially turn out to be the fruits of your Spirit, but we try to grow them by planting our seeds in rocks and thorns. In fact, I really enjoyed the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, and a lot of people who watched it loved it. It finally occurred to me that it was teaching pursuing the fruits of the Spirit. The problem is that it was doing it apart from you so it needed a contrived television script to pull it off. People are hungering for your fruit. They just don’t want to humble themselves and risk losing themselves. What they do not realize is that surrender brings them to a freedom through which they can find themselves.
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, my Triune God, I give you all my praise and worship. Thank you that your grace is never gonna change and your will always remain, and your love is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Amen
Emails to God 