Singing an old well known song at church today, I started to think how some of the lyrics were just *so* irrelevant to me…
“When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur…”
Seriously? Here I am in church, wearing thongs, in hot, desert-like, flat and featureless WA and I am singing about ‘mountains’?? And what exactly is grandeur exactly?
I think about a time when I was at the highest peak in WA. And then about different *actual* mountains in Switzerland or volcanoes in Tenerife I have visited…
They were amazing – picturesque – powerful scenes. But here, singing this song, those scenes mean *nothing*. It is not the ‘extravagant’ what comes to mind and causes me to worship – it is the things *far* more ‘mundane’ and valuable…
The many days where I really can’t handle the pain – where death seems so attractive, the days I don’t have the strength or capability to be all I want to be for my wife. The many days I don’t have the answers for my children or the ability to play / wrestle / teach or work with my children.
The many times I can’t fulfil a normal days work or am completely overwhelmed with the pressure of finances, trying to finish the house, run a ‘business’, catch up on taxes, fix our vehicle/s, be some kind of witness or achieve *something* for Jesus while completely inadequate…
In *those* times, when I feel so helpless, less than complete, useless and powerless that Jesus keeps me going. He sustains me and at times gives me this tiny, intimate signs that remind me:
He is in control
I am not alone, He has not abandoned me
He cares about me.
He actually loves me and those around me.
He has sustained me for 45+ years – through thick and thin, through every valley, through a life lived against Him and His people and through the many innumerable times that I have failed Him.
So, so holy. So, so faithful. So so forgiving.
But there is more.
He brings to mind the fact that if I open my tear filled eyes, I will see my beautiful, faithful, forgiving wife worshipping too.
And if I looked to her side I will see my six incredible children, all wanting to worship and serve this incredible God too. In fact, I can hear them singing – they may be out of tune or time, I wouldn’t know and do not care.
I know in this moment that if I actually submitted to the overwhelming emotion of all this, the indescribable joy, the unending and immeasurable love – I would collapse in a helpless bundle of tears. I try to keep it at bay – the last thing I want is to be a spectacle or detract people from worshipping this Almighty King.
I have nothing of myself for Him, all I have is a weak, out of tune song:
🎶 “How great thou art” 🎶