
It happened Sunday during worship. It doesn’t happen every Sunday and I don’t expect it to. But I keep coming because I never know when it will happen—-the Spirit showing up and capturing me and lifting me to some higher place in the most unexpected and surprising way.
We were singing our opening hymn—“Living for Jesus.” I knew the words by heart and I was seized by a sense of how grateful I was that I had known those words since I was a child….that I had grown up in church…that I had parents who took me to church…that such words were buried deep in the soil of my life —that so often when I have needed some words to express my faith a song has given me that gift. All that and more caught me by surprise and suddenly LIVING FOR JESUS became more than just an opening hymn, it became a sacred reminder of the journey of my life.
For me hymns have often been the expression of my theology. They have also been the words to express something deeper when I struggled to find ways to express it otherwise. For instance, a line in another hymn (What A Friend We Have in Jesus) is a staple whenever I find myself about to experience some struggle. The line? “Oh what needless pain we bear” I immediately am reminded of the next line–“All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer” and I am immediately given a new way to look at life.
Hymns and their words are gifts that can take us to a higher place. Such was my experience Sunday morning. I’m so glad I was there.
Brave Journey,
Bill