Month: May 2015

My Prayer…My Song…Draw Me Nearer

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. (James‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ HCSB)

Today I share another hymn I learned in Sunday School.  It seems as though we sang it every Sunday.  It was meaningful to me as a child, even though at the time I had no idea all that it really meant. But as I began to grow and mature in my faith, this hymn became part of my daily prayer life. I wasn’t concerned with Him drawing near to me…I always felt that I knew He was there in some kind of way I could not explain.  The burden was on me to draw near to Him!  I think one of the reasons I found this song so meaningful was because of its first person construct.  I took those words and made them mine…

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

I also liked playing this song because it was in my favorite key and the rhythm could be translated into soulful singing.  I still enjoy playing and singing this hymn.  There is nothing better than hearing a seasoned, Spirit-filled soloist pray this song.

HOW THIS HYMN HAS SHAPED MY LIFE:
From the moment I accepted Christ as my personal Savior, I KNEW I belonged to Him and I truly believed that I had heard Him profess His love for me.  Back then I knew that John 3:16 told me that God loves “whosoever believes in Him.”  And, I always believed that whosoever had my name on it!  I, Frankye, am Thine, O, LORD…but I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee.  As my faith continued to mature, the desire of my heart was to increase in faith and live so close to Him that I could feel Him breathe on me.  I wanted everything I did to please Him!  BUT I was still far from it…

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the pow’r of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

Becoming a mother was the greatest responsibility God has given me.  Later becoming a single mother was an even greater responsibility.   But where motherhood and single-parenting are concerned, this, I believe, is my life’s greatest purpose.   I asked God to consecrate me to serve, nurture, and bring these lives that He had entrusted to my care to the fullness of His plan for them when He created them.  As I began to fully grasp His grace, looking up in hope to Him and surrendering my will to His, became priorities in my life.  Did I do that perfectly?  Was I the perfect mother?  The perfect single parent?  The perfect grace-filled follower of Jesus that I desired to be?   No, no, no, no…

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!

It was during those times of trying to fulfill this particular responsibility He had given me that I discovered just how badly I needed to stay close to Him.  He had trusted ME to do the job of two people, but I believe it was because He KNEW His Holy Sprit would always be at my beck and call!  And He knew I would holler for help!  It was during these years that I realized just how serious this hymn and this scripture were to my life and its fruit. I very quickly found I needed to be in constant communion with Him EVERY DAY!  My pastor’s wife at the time was one who had established a practice that lasted her whole life.  She sometimes referred to it as  “goin’ down in knee-bone valley.”  We often spoke of it as “quiet time”–an appointment that we had every day that could not be cancelled.  And, even though we frequently shared quiet times, she taught me the importance of the pure delight of that single hour…half hour…three hours…15 minutes…spent consciously aware of His Presence with our minds “stayed on Him!”   Spending time with Him like we spent with one another…friend communing with friend.  

There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee.

I sincerely believe that the practice of spending time with Christ everyday keeps me aware of His Presence all day long.  We have no real need to invoke His Presence–He is here before we get there–we just need to ask to realize and acknowledge His Awesome Presence!

How different our lives would be if we were consciously aware of the Presence of the Almighty with us all day long.  Little did I know that this practice begun so long ago would carry me through many a day ahead. Later on the journey, God entrusted me with more responsibility for the sake of His Kingdom.  You see, He had been preparing me with those three awesome gifts He had given me for an even more difficult (at least it seemed that way to me) responsibility.  I had experienced the “call to ministry” at age 15, and had not a clue what it meant. The church of my upbringing clarified it for me;  “a call to healthcare  and music,” which I did for twenty plus years and tried my best to do as unto the LORD.  By the time I was 39-40, I began struggling with something that had come up in one of my quiet times and seemed to come up everywhere I turned.  After much struggle and prayer, I heard God clearly (through many avenues) and this time, I said a wearied “yes” to the LORD.  Yes, it was weary!  I just gave in to what would not go away!  That weariness soon turned to great fear when I considered what it meant, but the one thing I knew is that this would draw me closer to God, if I did it God’s way.  And I was determined to do it His Way…

THE ORIGIN OF THE HYMN:  Allow me to introduce you to my Sacred Music Professor in Divinity School, C. Michael Hawn, a great man of God, blessed with  spiritual gifts and talents that he uses for the sake of the Body of Christ. I remember the days singing with the Seminary Singers under his capable and Spirit-led direction; I so appreciate the memories of how he cared about the applicable meaning of every song we sang.  Click here to read Dr. Hawn’s account:  History of Hymns

What I can tell you nearly 30 years later is that the weary “yes,” has given me many of those times when He was so close I could literally feel Him breathe on me.  Those times usually came after times of great trial and turmoil while trying to be “as Christ” to all kinds of diverse people at different levels of spiritual maturity.  That weariness was transformed into “joy unspeakable.”

Weariness turned to Joy?  In every responsibility He has ever given me!  My three children, awesome people, are very different personalities–having the opportunity to live in the house with them and they with me, sometimes enduring great struggle, drew us all nearer to Christ.  Likewise, many of the people I have served have been awesome and we have all been drawn nearer to Christ by the journey we shared.  I think it all stems from the bountiful grace of drawing near to God that we have been given.  Are you a single parent today, struggling to try to give your children your very best?  Trying to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD?”  Are you weary of the world’s pull on them?  Ask God to draw you nearer…

Pastor, are you growing weary of the complacency and downright sin that plagues the Church?  Do you feel like giving up?  Ask God to draw you nearer…

My “knee-bone valley friend,” in her final months on planet earth, often spoke of sliding down the streets of gold when she arrived in Gloryland;  I envision it being like a child with a new bike or skateboard; that image of her comforts me everytime I start to lament her absence.  Fanny Crosby envisioned it as love and joy which none of us here on earth can know.  

 

“For in him we live, move and have our being;…” Acts 17:28a 

I need the every hour, Most gracious LORD, No tender voice like Thine, Can peace afford.

Paul addressed the council in Athens regarding their religiosity.  Theirs was religion that had led them to even inscribe an altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.  The Apostle sets the record straight–“It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously. When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows. I’m here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you’re dealing with. The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’”  Acts:17-22-28 MSG

I need Thee every hour;  Stay Thou near by.  Temptations lose their pow’r when Thou art nigh.

As I have considered this hymn, I have recalled that it is also one that I have known from a child.  As I grew into my teen years and began to play it on the piano in Sunday School, and later in worship, I listened intently to the elders and the mothers of the Church whine this hymn out; it was one that always made me feel like they were actually praying the song. The lyrics and music together felt so much like a declaration of praise and adoration.  And the “seasoned saints” appeared to be crying out to God as though they were letting God know that they knew how badly they needed Him.  Those children and grandchildren of African slaves in America (most just one-two generations from slavery) that formed the core strength of the Church of my upbringing were acutely aware of their constant need for God.  Their singing, with or without accompaniment, was most often born of that awareness.  “In addition to religious songs composed in worship and at work and individually authored hymns, African Americans also incorporated Euro-American hymns into their worship.  Rather than retaining the Euro-American structure, hymns were reshaped or improvised in a folklike manner or “blackenized” as a means of contextualization.  To sing hymns as they were heard in formalized settings did not lend itself to the social and spiritual bonding required of Africans in diaspora.  The process of re-creating and improvising hymns was a way of making the music their own.” (Costen, Melva Wilson, African American Christian Worship, 1993).

THE ORIGIN OF I NEED THE EVERY HOUR:  In his book, The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence claimed to be as close to God while working in the kitchen as when praying the chapel. The Lord, after all, is always near us, thus wherever we are is holy ground. That was the experience of Annie Hawks, a housewife and mother of three in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, Annie Sherwood had dabbled in poetry, her first verse being published when she was fourteen. In 1857, she married Charles Hawks and they established their home in Brooklyn, joining Dr. Robert Lowry’s Hanson Place Baptist Church.* With the good doctor’s encouragement, she began writing Sunday school songs for children, and he set many of them to music. ‘‘I Need Thee Every Hour’’ was written on a bright June morning in 1872. Annie later wrote, ‘‘One day as a young wife and mother of 37 years of age, I was busy with my regular household tasks. Suddenly, I became so filled with the sense of nearness to the Master that, wondering how one could live without Him, either in joy or pain, these words, ‘I Need Thee Every Hour,’ were ushered into my mind, the thought at once taking full possession of me.’’ The next Sunday, Annie handed these words to Dr. Lowry, who wrote the tune and chorus while seated at the little organ in the living room of his Brooklyn parsonage. Later that year, it was sung for the first time at the National Baptist Sunday School Association meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, and published in a hymnbook the following year. When Annie’s husband died sixteen years later, she found that her own hymn was among her greatest comforts. ‘‘I did not understand at first why this hymn had touched the great throbbing heart of humanity,’’ Annie wrote. ‘‘It was not until long after, when the shadow fell over my way, the shadow of a great loss, that I understood something of the comforting power in the words which I had been permitted to give out to others in my hour of sweet serenity and peace.’’   Some time after Charles’ death, Annie moved to Bennington, Vermont, to live with her daughter and son-in-law. All in all, she wrote over four hundred hymns during her eighty-three years, though only this one is still widely sung (Morgan, Robert.  Then Sings My Soul: 150 of The World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Thomas Nelson, 2003).

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain; Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

HOW THIS SONG HAS SHAPED MY LIFE:  This “hymn of improvisation” (a term coined and used by Wyatt Tee Walker to arbitrarily explain the “gospelizing” of hymns) is one of the earliest in my repertoire of hymns that once learned from the musical score, I had to learn to improvise or embellish in order to accompany my community of faith as they worshipped in song.  Accompanying them required listening…listening closely to the emotion and the sentiment of the congregation.  It also required feeling…feeling the rhythm of the elders and mothers as they sang.  It required embodiment…embodying the sacred reliance suggested by their expressions and voice inflections.  It required listening…listening to the tonal quality and nuances of a God-reliant people. Listening is required in order to improvise or embellish–in order to “make the music our own.”   (Walker, Wyatt Tee, Somebody’s Calling My Name:  Black Sacred Music and Social Change, Judson Press, 1979).

I need the every hour; teach me Thy will; And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

Listening was easy and transformative for me.  Hearing, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult.  (Hence, I was not one who played by ear naturally).  Hearing encompassed not only the ears, but the fingers also.  It is as though your fingers, coupled with your learned musical ability, hear better than your ears.  I could always connect with the congregation and what they were doing and feeling while singing, however, I was not always able to translate what I heard to my fingers.  In order to be able to pull off playing in the Church of my upbringing required sitting at the piano for hours just listening and trying to hear; it also required sitting at the piano with those who have the God-given ability to “hear it and play it.”  For me it alsor required recognizing my need for God’s assistance in using the talent He had blessed me to have.

I need Thee every hour; Most Holy One; Oh, Make me Thine indeed; Thou blessed Son.

There was a period in my life when God seemed to me to be THE UNKNOW-ABLE, UNTOUCHABLE GOD, mainly because some things in my life had not turned out the way I had planned or desired.  And I had really thought I was seeking to operate, for the most part, in His will for my life.  I had come to wonder whether or not God was really concerned about or involved in the minor details and routines of my life.  But as I began to mature in my faith and my understanding of His Word, I began to understand their singing of this song.  I was understanding and appreciating why the elders and mothers in the Church of my upbringing had sung with such fervor…such passionate longing and dependence.  I began recognizing just how hopeless and helpless I would be if God had not been holding me.  It was then that Paul’s sermon to the Athenians became a source of direction for me:

• directing me back to God for EACH and EVERY situation
• helping me once again trust His omnipotence
• directing me to realize that ALL my help comes from the LORD!
• Reminding me that every move I make, every breath I take is only by His grace–in Him we live, and move and have our being.

It may be that tonight you are in a place in which I am quite familiar.  You might be hurting.  You might be feeling alone and lonely.  Your heart my be broken.  You may have received horrible news or been unjustly treated by someone you trusted.  You may even feel that God does not care OR have time for your pitiful little problems and issues. And my brother, my sister, nothing could be farther from the truth!  He is present and He is just waiting for you to reach out to Him.  WHATEVER it is, my friend, you NEED The LORD.  And believe me, He wants to bless you!

Oh bless me now, My Savior, I come to Thee!

MY STORY…MY SONG…’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.               Proverbs 3:5-6  NRSV

I remember singing this song in Sunday School long before I could read a note to sing or play the piano.  I cannot fully explain why as a youngster this song captured my heart.  I now believe it had something to do with the sweetness of Jesus captured in the whole of the song.  Or maybe it was the sweetness that trusting Him brought to one’s life, even as a child.  In the church of my upbringing, we practiced believer’s baptism; I remember well the morning that I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior along with several of my Sunday School classmates.

The Sunday School lesson was from The Gospel of John, chapter 1, where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan.  As a 7-year-old who had been in Church more-than-regularly for her brief years, I think I had known long before that Sunday that I wanted Jesus to be my personal Savior. I remember being taught way back then that one of the gifts of salvation was living in personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  It was a gift that would actually transform the way you lived with an unseen God, as well as with people right here on earth.

That morning as we went down while the invitation was extended in Sunday School (yep, back then the invitation was extended in Sunday School, as well as in worship), I remember being asked if I believed Jesus was God’s Son?  Yes.  Do you believe Jesus died for all your sins and to restore you to right relationship with God?  Yes.  Do you want to be a Christian?  Yes.  I remember speaking my affirmation that was something like this, Jesus, I trust you to be my personal Savior.  Did I KNOW what I was saying?  I believe I did as much as a 7-year-old can.  Then, I imagine it was probably a trust like I had for my parents and grandparents and teachers and preachers and adult neighbors. And as much as I loved reading and listening to stories back then, I knew this story of Jesus’ baptism was not just a story.  I knew that the story of Jesus’ baptism was a sign that I could trust Him with and in my own…

Last week’s post was focused on the Creator-God as the Faithful One.  This week’s post is about TRUSTING JESUS, which, I believe, is one very important response to the faithfulness of God.  What does it mean to TRUST Jesus? To put it simply, let it suffice to say, TRUST in Jesus means that we have TOTAL CONFIDENCE in Him. As the years have progressed, the sweetness of trusting Jesus has become a fundamental reality in my life.  And, I have realized also, that Jesus (The Triune God) is the ONLY ONE in Whom we can place TOTAL CONFIDENCE! Sweet! (Let’s be clear about what we are talking about when we say sweet in relationship to this song and to Jesus.  Synonymous words like: the MOST delightful, the MOST pleasant, the MOST satisfying, are the very BEST that come to mind).

You see, God has called me to do things that are far greater than my abilities–and because He called me, I have learned that I can depend on Him to empower me with everything I need to accomplish His purposes for my life.  If that awareness ain’t sweet, then fat meat ain’t greasy! (LOL) And not only is the awareness sweet, so is the gift of trusting Him itself. It is sweet to have TOTAL CONFIDENCE IN THE ONLY ONE WHO IS FAITHFUL! 

THE ORIGIN OF ‘TIS SO SWEET TO TRUST IN JESUS:  How fitting that a missionary should write this hymn about faith and trust. Louisa M. R. Stead was born about 1850 in Dover, England, and became a Christian at age nine. She felt a burden to become a missionary in her teenage years. When she was 21 or so, she immigrated to the United States and attended a revival meeting in Urbana, Ohio. There the Lord deeply impressed her with a ringing missionary call. She made plans to go to China, but her hopes were dashed when her health proved too frail for the climate there. Shortly afterward, she married a man named Stead. But sometime around 1879 or 1880, Mr. Stead drowned off the coast of Long Island. Some accounts say that he saved a boy who was drowning, and other accounts say both Mr. Stead and the boy perished. Other records suggest it was his own four-year-old daughter, Lily, that he saved. In any event, the family’s beach-side picnic ended in tragedy for Louisa. Shortly afterward, taking little Lily, Louisa went to South Africa as a missionary, and it was there during those days she wrote, ‘‘’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.’’ Louisa served in South Africa for fifteen years, and while there she married Robert Wodehouse. When her health forced a return to America, Robert pastored a local Methodist Church. In 1900, her health restored, Robert and Louisa attended a large missionary conference in New York, and were so enthused by the experience they again offered themselves as missionary candidates. They arrived as Methodist missionaries in Rhodesia on April 4, 1901. ‘‘In connection with this whole mission there are glorious possibilities,’’ she wrote. ‘‘One cannot in the face of the peculiar difficulties help saying, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ but with simple confidence and trust we may and do say, ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’ ’’ Louisa retired in 1911, and passed away in 1917; but her daughter, Lily, married missionary D. A. Carson and continued the work for many years at the Methodist mission station in southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).  (Morgan, Robert, Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, 2003)

HOW THIS SONG HAS SHAPED MY LIFE

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word,
Just to rest upon His promise
And to know thus saith the LORD.

By now you are aware that a good part of my journey has been riddled with challenge, struggle and disappointment.  But ‘somehow’ those things have not been able to define me.  ALL BECAUSE somewhere in the depth of my being, no matter, how minute, there has been that simple, childlike, sweet trust in Jesus.  It was so infantile that even lacking understanding of how His Word came to be bound in a book (a persistent question I had as a child), I have found that Word to be totally trustworthy.  Because of that, even in times of doubt, I have found it to be quite natural to rest on His promises; something I guess I learned from my grandmother. Remember her example from an earlier post, reaching for the Word throughout the day, as though it was God communicating with and to her. She found her rest in His promises and now I’m finding more and more of mine there these days, as well.

Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
And in simple faith to plunge me
‘Neath the healing, cleansing flood!

I believe the childlike understanding of believer’s baptism finds its affirmation in this verse.  Simply trusting the power of His blood to cleanse one from sin; to have an uncomplicated faith that would cause me to follow my Savior in baptism; later on the journey learning that He has thoroughly healed and cleansed me by that precious blood, which was part of the symbolism at my baptism.

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.

I came to Jesus as a clueless little seven-year-old, but somewhere deep inside I believed He came to save me from my ‘sin’ and to give me life and rest and joy and peace.  On this journey, I have had times of sinfulness, lifelessness, total unrest and times of joylessness and total chaos.  Today, as a senior person, I can attest that I know Him to be the One who saves me from my sin and even from myself; I know Him as my Life-giver, my Haven, my Joy, my Peace–right in the midst of life’s storms. He is my All in All!

I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.

This verse is the verse that has brought to a greater understanding the words of Mrs. Stead as I have journeyed through this life, trusting my LORD.  Many circumstances, positive and negative, have helped to shape me into what I hope is becoming more and more a faithful servant-disciple of our LORD.  I AM so glad that I learned to trust Jesus and am learning to trust Him even more…grateful that I know Him as Savior and Friend…grateful that I know He will never, ever leave me…NEVER!  The Psalmist recorded these words that speak my heart today:  I have been young and now I am older, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned or his children begging for bread.  Psalm 37:25 HCSB  (“er” in older is mine)

I have come a long way toward fully recognizing and appreciating the sweetness of trusting Jesus…the sweetness of life lived totally conscious and aware of His Presence, His power, His provision, and His protection.  That is especially true when I meditate on the scripture that I have known from a child, as well.  Eugene Peterson, in the Message Paraphrase says it None like this: Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track (Proverbs 3:5-6).  There was no greater time of reliance on this admonition than when God called me to ordained ministry.  No elders in my family could or would affirm my call.  I wanted their approval so badly, however, they contended that it was “wrong for a woman to preach.”  Because of the trust relationship that had developed between Jesus and me via the Holy Spirit…rather than leaning on the resource of my elders (which I had always done, especially in important matters), I listened to the One Who had created and called me; I acknowledged Him as Supreme Director of my life.  After much prayer, reluctance, discernment, with much fear and trembling, I finally came to say an emphatic YES to my LORD!  And I must share that I had the privilege of seeing Him work acceptance of His way in the hearts of each of those elders before they returned to Him.  Today, I shudder to think how empty my life would be had I not gone against the grain and obediently answered His call!  How many opportunities I would have missed!  How void of the many wonderful relationships I have been blessed to form! The numerous times God used this simple (oftentimes clueless) ragamuffin vessel to be a transformative voice or witness in the midst of a variety of situations!  Sweet!

I declare, God can be trusted!

The refrain of our hymn says:

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

What I can tell you today is this…in this life, there will be times when you feel like you cannot go on…matter of fact, you may feel like you do not WANT to go on.  I am a witness, no matter how hard the trial, how tough the challenge, how dark the hour…it is sweet to trust in Jesus… Trusting Him frees me from worry about ANY and EVERY thing…I’m just seeking grace to TRUST HIM EVEN MORE!

You know what I have found that makes trusting Jesus so sweet?  When life, from a human vantage point, is at its very worse, if I will take a deep breath and exhale…and simply whisper a reminder to myself and a prayer to my LORD…LORD, I trust YOU with the whole of my life!  I guarantee a sweetness and a calm will encompass you, and before you realize it, your perspective will be different.

Why don’t you try it right now…