I love music. I make no claim to be a musician or even musical, but I love music. And I love when musicians combine great music with great words.
The last few weeks and months have been fairly smooth for our family, but we have a few friends who have been enduring difficult times (a slight understatement, really). As I listened to the Sovereign Grace station we "created" on Pandora, this song came on:
As Long As You Are Glorified
by Mark Altrogge
Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt
Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified
Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night
Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified
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As I listened I thought about my friends and their intense struggles. I thought about the losses that I am not experiencing but that have seemed to pierce my heart deeply. I felt as though my breath had been knocked out of me. Do I really want this? Can I honestly say, Oh let Your will be done in me, In Your love I will abide. Oh I long for nothing else as long as You are glorified.
I want that to be my heart's prayer and cry to God. I want Him to be glorified, and I find myself trembling inside just thinking about it because truly nothing else matters, but I know that my selfish and self-protective desires get in the way. So I ask, Lord, help me.
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3 comments:
Dear Thomas and Christy, one helpful thing in thinking of what to ask for, more specifically, for themselves and for you (and for me when y'all think of me!)--can be arrived at by thinking about Job in reverse.
With respect to the wellbeing and growth of His servant, for what was God willing to put him through so much? "I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You."
There were, of course, benefits for his friends who were allowed to make terrible counseling errors and got corrected and prayed for. And, there were benefits for us, who are reading and responding to the Holy Spirit's account. Finally, God's glory, power, wisdom, and love were all magnified--in particular how Christ was willing to lay down even more than Job just to save us! But, I digress...
To read Job 42:5 "backwards" into your prayer, it might look something like this: "Lord, please take my dear, struggling friends, and grant them to know you so much more clearly and intimately that even their knowledge of you now would seem to them to have been but a rumor compared to how they will know you then."
I think that this would be a means by which God might accomplish your longing. For, those who long alone for Him to be glorified are likely those who are best acquainted with that glory.
Thanks for your writing. We enjoy it and are helped by it!
how embarrassing to have spelled your name wrong right underneath where it was spelled correctly! sorry :(
Thanks for this, Cristy. I once had a dear saint who was going through a deep trial tell me, "God would not be doing this if there were an easier way." Sometimes, his strength and glory are made most perfect in times of distress. Praying that I can shine His glory today as I wait on His blessing. . .
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