Friday, 22 June 2007

• Suffering is a subcateogry.

   

  I read an interesting interview with songwriter, Matt Redman. He was talking about the circumstances that prompted the writing of "Blessed Be Your Name". There are many who relate the book of Job to hardship... toil... grief... suffering, but from Matt's perspective:

  "I think it's really about something much grander—the sovereignty of God—of which suffering is a subcategory."

  In the narrowly constructed hallows of my psyche - Suffering is the name of my book-not a subcategory-having come face to face with a grief too heavy to bear. When you're waist-deep in mire, inching along toward perceived normalcy, it requires all the strength you can muster. Do we really believe God to be who He says He is? Do I really believe God to be who He says He is? Matt Redman says, "Trust is a beautiful act of worship." That it is. Nattie believed that, too - and it's just one of the reasons, I imagine, this song was her anthem.

  "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." Job 1:20-22

  Our lives here on earth are just.... breaths in the wind. It's a very flawed glimpse of a holy eternity, and we get so caught up in the subcategories that we often forget our books are being penned by a Sovereign Hand.

   

  Blessed be your name
  In the land that is plentiful
  Where the streams of abundance flow
  Blessed be your name

  Blessed be your name
  When I'm found in the desert place
  Though I walk through the wilderness
  Blessed be your name

  Blessed be your name
  When the sun's shining down on me
  When the world's all as it should be
  Blessed be your name

  Blessed be your name
  On the road marked with suffering
  Though there's pain in the offering
  Blessed be your name

  Every blessing you pour out,
  I'll turn back to praise
  When the darkness closes in, Lord
  Still I will say...
  Blessed be the name of the Lord
  Blessed be your name
  Blessed be the name of the Lord
  Blessed be your glorious name

  You give and take away
  You give and take away
  My heart will choose to say:
  "Lord, Blessed be your name."

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