“Great is Thy Faithfulness”.
This hymn has been an anthem that has been a constant presence in my family. No other hymn can more accurately communicate the gratitude we have for our faithful God, and let’s be honest, few things (other than Scripture) have the sound spiritual and emotional power than a hymn.
This hymn was sung at my wedding, at my mother’s wedding and at my mother’s funeral. But before those events, I can remember mom playing this tune on the piano, singing the lyrics with passion and gratitude.
Some of you may not know this, but I can sing. I always have been able to sing. Ever since I was a little girl I was singing in a choir, singing solo’s for church, and as I grew older I did paid work for funerals, weddings, and even sang the National Anthem for a minor league baseball game in front of thousands of people. (I mixed up the words “flight” and “night”, but I don’t think anyone noticed.)
I had great dreams of being a paid professional Christian recording artist, and there was a point in my naivety of life that I was absolutely certain it was my calling. It came natural to me, singing in front of people didn’t scare me, and nothing felt quite like putting my passion for the truth of Jesus into music. Also, people embraced it. My gift was something that was admired, appreciated and made people feel good.
And if I’m honest, that made me feel good. You see, before I completely surrendered every facet of my life to Jesus, what I thought I was called to were things that I wanted; good things. Good things that surely God gave me and wanted me to do, because I was good at it.
In my 20’s I worked as an Activity Director for senior citizens. I was so incredibly passionate about enhancing the quality of life of that group of people, and I was also very good at it. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, because I loved it and was gifted in it, but God had other plans.
Flash forward to my mom’s wedding. I sang the hymn acapella, and it went well. Afterwards my mom approached me and said that the pastor approached her and said “Whatever she is doing she needs to stop doing, and just do that.” or something to that effect.
While a compliment, this statement has been haunting me. You see, we live in a world that tells us to “do what we love”, placing our happiness and success above all else. Also, if we are talented at it, we are wasting that talent if we aren’t using it.
Friends, as a Christian, this is an outright lie straight from the pit of hell.
To be surrendered to Christ means to willingly give Him all that He has made you to be, but especially the parts that we are confident about; the parts that make sense. It’s easy to give to God something that we don’t quite understand or have any direction with, but it’s the things that don’t fall into that category that are hard to surrender.
I’m a full-time, stay at home mama to a toddler and 6-year-old going on 16. Prior to being a SAHM, I worked outside of the home and juggled business casual and my bath robe. God calls us to show up for different things in different seasons, but most importantly He has called us to lay down all that we hold dear and makes sense to us. Specifically, the things that make us feel good.
At one point I was seeing a life coach. I remember her asking me “If you could do anything and money wasn’t an issue, what would it be?” and do you know that not a portion of my answer involved singing? Over the years God has developed and matured me (and continues to do so) and answered my prayer of “Make your desires my desires.”
“A man’s heart plans his course, but the Lord determines His steps.”-Proverbs 16:9
Oh, the freedom we have in Christ! The world may look at us as being enslaved in some way, and we are. We are enslaved to our sins and our own desires, even if they do appear to be good and acceptable. We will always be in a battle with our flesh, but the Lord…oh THE LORD, has already won this battle! The freedom comes in knowing and believing that He is creating us to be what HE desires us to be.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Phil.1:6
