God Bless America

[1][2]

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live!  Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed.  Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice.  Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of his people.  Amos 5:14-15

I’m drawing on a memory that is from about 60 years ago (which is a bit dangerous, considering I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday).  Nonetheless, it is a memory that returns often.  The singer was Kate Smith, and the patriotic song I first heard gave me goosebumps. 

Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America during World War I in 1918.  It was updated in World War II and became Kate Smith’s signature song[3].  I loved it when I first heard it in the mid-1950’s, and I got weary of it after September 11, 2001, when it became the music to accompany the seventh-inning stretch at ball games.  Berlin wrote and updated the song as a contribution to developing a culture of peace.  It has become something of a marching song to support the troops in wartime.

Let me be quick to say I do love this country (lest I be just as quickly invited to leave).  I love so much of what this nation’s founding has as its base, political and religious freedom, and the open opportunity tradition that offers everyone the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. 

(By the way…you have the right to pursue it, but you must catch it for yourself…there’s no guarantee it will be handed to you on a silver platter!)

I believe there are (at least) three ways you can sing Berlin’s song; you can sing it as favorite, a filler, or as a prayer. 

Favorite

There are songs we just like because they’re easy to remember and everybody else seems to know the words too.  They’re like drinking songs, making you smile and feel good when everyone joins-in.  Some of the favorites when it comes to the hymns at church are like this, which is why we wear them out.

Filler

At the ballpark you need something to take your mind off how boring some games can be…or at least how much your back is aching after sitting on a metal bench for 3½ hours.  Filling the seventh inning stretch with a rousing patriotic marching song tends to bring you back to the ballpark to buy $4 hotdogs.

Prayer

This is a lot harder than favorites and fillers.  When you really mean what the words say in this song, you’re putting your life on the line.  To ask God to BLESS America, you’re asking God to take over and make this country what HE sees as best, not for the sake of America, or any political ideology, but for the sake of God’s Kingdom.  The reason for that is God’s Kingdom supersedes any earthly nation, kingdom or ideas. 

This prayer is no baseball theme song, it’s a serious offering of who you are to be used in God’s plan.  When you ask God to stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with a light from above, you’re not asking God to steer this ship toward invincibility from enemies, but to the position of holiness to do God’s will.  This isn’t rubbing the good luck charm to stay on a winning streak; this is bowing before holy God to report for duty.

For You Today

God bless America.  If you honestly love this land, and all the godly principles upon which she has stood, sing the song as a prayer.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com        Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post by this name God Bless America 7-7-15

[3] See Parade Magazine 7-3-18 article “6 Things You Didn’t Know About the Song ‘God Bless America’

The Everlasting Arms

[1]

Friday, July 27, 2018

You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the Lord is your security.  He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.  Proverbs 3:25-26^(NLT)

The hymns we sing come back to haunt us sometimes; their theology is sound, but our sometimes weak (and only wishful) application of that theology is shaky at best.  One of those hymns got me a few weeks ago.  The hymn in question is one I have sung often since I first heard it as a child:  Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.  What stung me is the faulty way I have clung to the chorus of that hymn:

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;

Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.[2]

“Safe and secure” is a basic human need and desire; we all want to be safe, protected from the boogie man lurking in the closet, or under the bed.  But the fact remains we do not live in a world where that kind of peaceful security is the norm.  Just ask Job.  If anyone could have expected his borders were going to remain secure, it was the rich, respected man from Uz.  But Job’s life fell apart in an afternoon; health, wealth, family, position in the community, and even his clear skin were covered with violence and boils – the man lost everything.  It certainly seems like the destruction that comes from the wicked won out there; where were the everlasting arms that day?

And what about all the times YOU prayed for something – and that something never materialized? 

And what about those fires in California, mudslides in Indonesia, and all the murders?  What about Alzheimer’s, cancer, and the all the creeping-up that old age does on you?  Why do children die in their cribs, and serial killers get to live in prisons we pay for…or, worse…just get away with it?  Why?  Everlasting arms…really?

It becomes abundantly clear how misleading the hymn can be when we apply the thought of God’s care and protection to our lives merely from the point of what WE humans think we need, or worse, what we think we WANT.

Back to a couple of weeks ago when I was pondering this gap in my theological garment, as to why bad things happen if God is really on the job.  My DVR is set to record Dr. David Jeremiah while I’m at church on Sundays, and one day that week Elizabeth and I sat down to watch the recorded message.  The sermon was one in a series from Ecclesiastes, so he was preaching on this enigma of how God can claim He’s looking out for us, and yet, such terrible stuff happens.  And this meddling preacher jumped right into the chink in my thinking.  Here’s what he said:

You will never find security in the things God does, only in WHO God IS.  God is consistent in His nature, but totally unpredictable in what He does.[3]

Now that sounds contradictory; if God is loving, shouldn’t his actions be the same?  If God is patient with us, why not just hold off all the bad stuff till we get our act together?    Why don’t the everlasting arms keep all alarms away?

Well, that’s a good question, for which I still don’t have the answer, but suffice to say, I don’t need the answer yet.  Like Job, who questioned God’s motives about all his problems, and got an answer he wasn’t ready enough, or big enough to handle, God said:  Little man, you can’t see from up here where I see; chill out, I’m on your side.

If you need a Scripture verse to hang that on, here it is:

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:9^(NLT)

For You Today

The bottom line is always that the everlasting arms are always on the job, and we can trust in God to keep us from harm; it’s just that we can’t see those arms when they’re busy wrapping around us, keeping the real hounds of hell at bay.  Keep your eyes higher than your problems; that’s where the real action is!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, Elisha A. Hoffman & Anthony J. Showalter, 1887

[3] Dr. David Jeremiah, Turning Point Broadcast, July 11, 2018

Come Gracious Spirit

Monday, July 21, 2014

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.      Isaiah 57:15  (NLT)

I love the hymns of the church.  These express for me much of what is an inexpressible depth of the soul’s love for God. 

In particular, I love old hymns, less-prone to mindless repetition, or slave to the driving beat.

Don’t misread this – I do love contemporary worship songs; I just prefer more than one thought per session.  I want to pray and think deeply as I worship with song.

Check out Simon Browne’s prayer to the Spirit, written in 1720:

Come, Gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove, with light and comfort from above;
be thou our guardian, thou our guide o'er every thought and step preside.
O'er every thought and step preside.

The light of truth to us display, and make us know and choose thy way;
plant holy fear in every heart, that we from God may ne'er depart.
That we from God may ne'er depart.

Lead us to holiness, the road which we must take to dwell with God;
lead us to Christ, the living way nor let us from His pastures stray.
Nor let us from His pastures stray.

Lead us to God our final rest to be with Him forever blest;
lead us to heaven, its bliss to share fullness of joy forever there.
Fullness of joy forever there.

(You can listen to The Altar of Praise Chorale sing it here)

I imagine the reason I’m drawn to hymns like these are because they call me to surrender my will to God’s.  Browne’s hymn is more than drawing me, it’s an invitation for the Spirit to show up in my life and lead me.

I need that.

I need to defer my personal choices to God’s intervention and direction in my life.

I need much more than just what I like.  I’ve found that my personal preferences and petty choices usually have little to do with what God is trying to do in me.  

I need to (like the invitation hymn intones) surrender all.

For You, Today…

Is your will surrendered?

Did you make it a point to come to Christ this way today…

Just as I am, without one plea,

but that thy blood was shed for me,

and that Thou bidst me, come to thee,

O Lamb of God, I come; I come.[1]

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[1] Just As I Am, Words:  Charlotte Elliot, 1835, Music:  William B. Bradbury, 1849