An old hymn, more of a prayer, really, popped into my mind this morning as I was making coffee. I have not heard or sung this tune in nearly sixty years – maybe longer. I sang it this morning over and over before a weekly prayer call I have with a friend.
Then I paged through some of my old hymnals, failing to find it. I looked in another location and found it, but only the last line since the first had been torn out; no doubt to facilitate a quick transition for some long-ago church service. On a whim, with little hope and much doubt, I perused my latest hymnal. There it was!
It’s simple request is one we need to make to God in heaven right now. Join me?
Image: Hear Our Prayer, O Lord taken from Psalm 143:1 by George Whelpton, The Celebration Hymnal, copyright 1997 by Word/Integrity
. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. – Abraham Lincoln, November, 1863
After it all . . .
President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
A precipice is something that is very steep – the edge of a cliff, for instance. If you think very much about it, it can make your feet feel the way they feel when you’re about to fall from a bridge – not that most of us would venture close to the edge of such a thing. Some people use the expression cold feet, but it is oh so much more.
Our nation is in such a position tonight. Actually, it has been there for more than one night. We’ve had a taste of the misfortune some other countries have experienced for years. It’s what happens when you order a president by mail. It’s unfortunate that the workers in the warehouse sent what was available or what they thought you should have rather than what you asked for.
What we need is a safety net – something to catch us so we don’t end up splat flat dead at the bottom of the cliff. God has a lot of specialties. Safety nets are one. Not that we deserve it. We don’t. But He gave us a way to call for one.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Before we vote, I suggest we make that call.
Image: pexels-joagbriel-1753922.jpg; scripture: II Chronicles 7:14
“It’s just easier, you know? I click the link, sip coffee in my pajamas, and even get a little housework done during the boring parts.”
“Plus I don’t worry about the kids getting antsy. God is there where two or three are gathered, right?”
The people in Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica. They were so glad to hear the message Paul told them. They studied the Scriptures every day to make sure that what they heard was really true.
And continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.
“What a great sermon!”
“I just can’t get enough of him, can you?”
“I don’t know how he does it week after week. But he does!”
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
“And the worship! I felt transported!”
“The worship is the best around, for sure.”
Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord.
And God watched. He heard their voices and music and words. And He listened to what hearts were saying.
Image: edwin-andrade-6liebVeAfrY-unsplash.jpg; Acts 17:11; Acts 2:46; Acts 20:7; Hebrews 12:28-29; Ephesians 5:19
My father died around this time six years ago. This description is one he, himself, shared at a friend’s funeral many years before. It’s a good piece of prose, not just due to its imagery, but because it is true.
‘Gone From My Sight’
“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.Then someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.And she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me – not in her.
And just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
And that is dying…”
We find ourselves amidst immense struggles just now. Though the death of those we love always pricks, death out of time lends considerable pause to our days. For those who have lost loved ones during these few years of trouble and loss, I read everything you write, look at every photo, and think about the unnatural quiet that has come to your daily routine. And not I, alone, but the world experiences a heavy grief and silent ache. That world, people we know and those we have never met, sends prayers – many prayers – that an unseen enemy’s attack will, itself, receive its just counterassault.
For while goodness might be temporarily silenced, it will not remain so. It will rise in glorious triumph. Until then, those of us left will stand. We will stand firm in the knowledge of God’s mercy and Jesus’ victory. We will stand firm in our part of the battle wherever it may find us. And we will stand firm because we know Who has already won.
Poem: Henry Van Dyke,1852-1934; image: sailboat-pexels-taryn-elliott-6790330.jpg
Have you bought your brats and hotdogs? Your hamburger? Your pulled pork? Do you have the corn on the cob shucked? The lemonade stirred?
It was around this time, July 4, 1776, when some brave people did more than enjoy good food on a pleasant day. I’ll bet they worked up a sweat. I’ll bet they experienced some anxiety along with determination. They worked on a document which to this day holds our nation firm. It begins:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
I wonder how many rough drafts and rewrites were involved in writing this great document? I wonder if private questions kept them up at night: thoughts of how high the cost would be for them and their families when they signed their names to it? Because there was. There was a great cost.
It’s a good thing to be brave. Courage gave us a free nation. And we need courage to keep it. Lives. Fortunes. Sacred Honor.
Declaration of Independence quote can be found at: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript; A Quick Hello: Brave Words by Brave Men on BitChute
https://animoto.com/play/4OSejdHrzg12254jdbBwaA