In the Valley

I don’t have a specific writer for today’s Writer Wednesday post.  The reason for that is the book I’m drawing from is a collection of writings drawn from a group of writers.  It is a book of Puritan Prayers called the Valley of Vision.  Arthur Bennett in the preface states “The prayers in this book are drawn from the largely forgotten deposit of Puritan spiritual exercises, meditations and aspirations.  They testify to the richness and colour of evangelical thought and language that animated vital piety in an important stream of English religious life.”  In reading the prayers of saints who have walked before I have been challenged by their devotion to the Lord, their passion for His glory, their hatred of their own sin, and their fear of the God of the universe.  

The preface goes on to say “The book is not intended to be read as a prayer manual.  The soul learns to pray by praying; for prayer is communion with a transcendent and immanent God who on the ground of His nature and attributes calls forth all the powers of the redeemed soul in acts of total adoration and dedication.  The prayers should therefore be used as aspirational units, the several parts of which could become springboards for the individual’s own prayer subjects.”  During those times when it can be hard to know what to pray for this book includes starting points, vivid reminders of many of the things we should be speaking to the Lord about.  Prayers that speak of His greatness, prayers that wonder at His mercy in redemption, prayers that beg forgiveness from sin, prayers of humble confession, prayers that recognize our helplessness,  prayers of thankfulness for the Lord’s abundant blessings, prayers asking for holiness, faith, grace, joy, contentment, sleep, comfort, happiness, sincerity, and prayers expressing the longing for eternity. 

There are so many things we should be going to the Lord for, so much that scripture calls us to pray without ceasing.  Yet often it’s hard to pray, hard to think deeply enough to approach the Lord with boldness.  I have been thankful to have these prayers as a springboard and a way to focus my own heart of the wonders of the Lord and on the joy and privilege it is to be heard in His presence.  Here is one of my favorite prayers from the Valley of Vision

The Deeps

Give me a deeper repentance,
A horror of sin,
A dread of its approach;
Help me chastely to flee it,
And jealously to resolve that my heart
Shall be thine alone.
Give me a deeper trust,
That I may lose myself to find myself in Thee,
The ground of my rest,
The spring of my being.
Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself
As Saviour, Master, Lord and King.
Give me deeper power in private prayer,
More sweetness in thy Word,
More steadfast grip on its truth.
Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
And let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee.
Plough deep in me, great Lord,
Heavenly Husbandman,
That my being may be a tilled field,
The roots of grace spreading far and wide,
Until Thou alone art seen in me,
Thy beauty golden like summer harvest,
Thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.
I have no Master but thee,
No law but thy will,
No delight but thyself,
No wealth but that thou givest,
No good but that thou blessest,
No peace but that thou bestowest.
I am nothing but that thou makest me,
I have nothing but that I receive from thee,
I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.
Quarry me deep, dear Lord,
And then fill me to overflowing
With living water.

Tunesday

Today I have decided to try out another theme day!!  Tuesday sounds a bit like Tunesday doesn’t it? This idea is not new but shamelessly stolen from other bloggers who take one day a week to feature a song.  If you know me at all you know I love music.  I’ve been known to literally break into song without even meaning to.  I sing along with the music in the grocery store, I sing in the car, I sing in the shower, I sing when people say words that are in songs I know.   .  . Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it until a strange in the baking aisle starts staring.

Since music stays so firmly in my mind it has been an extremely important part of my spiritual life as well.  I read a quote once that talked about how while many things like books and sermons pass through a mind fleetingly hymns stay in a mind and the tunes replay again and again causing that mind to dwell on the words, to meditate on them fully.  Adding music to lyrics cements those lyrics in the mind.  While there are many useless songs that can get stuck in my head on occasion there are also those wonderful songs that cause my thoughts to turn to the Lord.  There are those hymns and spiritual songs that tune my heart to sing His praise.

This morning I pulled a book off my shelf to look for a song to share here.  The book is Gadsby’s Hymns and according to the back cover it “is an esteemed collection of 1156 hymns of rich theological content, many of which are not found in any other current hymnal”  Many of these hymns are filled to overflowing with doctrine and adoration of the living God.  Many of the hymns in these pages no longer have tunes and it can be a delight to me to sit down with the guitar and just sing the words, most of my tunes are just a joyful noise unto the Lord with an emphasis on the word noise.  However I am not the only one who knows about this hymnal.  I discovered the book after hearing settings from it by Red Mountain Music, they actually have a CD drawn entirely from Gadsby’s Hymnal, giving tunes back to a few of these incredible hymns. 

For today I wanted to share one of my favorite hymns from Gadsby’s Hymnal and really one of my favorite hymns period.  It is Hymn # 1052 and I learned it under the title “Friend of Sinners”

Redeemer whither should I flee

Or how escape the wrath to come
The weary sinner flies to Thee
For shelter from impending doom;
Smile on me gracious Lord
And show Thyself the Friend of sinners now

 

Beneath the shadow of Thy cross
My heavy laden soul finds rest
I would esteem the world but dross
So I might be of Christ possessed
I’d seek my every joy in Thee
Be Thou both life and light to me

 

Close to Thy highly shameful tree
Jesus my humbled soul would cleave
Despised and crucified with Thee
With the resolved to die and live
This prayer and this ambition mine
Living and dying to be Thine

 

There fastened to the rugged wood
By holy love’s resistless chain
And life deriving from Thy blood
Never to wander wide again
There may I bow my suppliant knee
And own no other Lord but Thee

I can fly. . . ouch. . .maybe not

Is it possible to fall behind on a self-imposed writing project?   Well if it is then I have fallen a bit behind on this blog.  However, I am behind for good reason.  Real life has been extremely busy over the last week.  For the past few years I’ve been involved in St Stephen’s Parish Players, a community theater group on Grand Island.  My mom saw an ad in the town’s paper for auditions about 5 years ago and sent me to go try out.  My audition was absolutely terrible that year; however I was cast in the chorus of Annie Get Your Gun and have been involved with the group ever since both on and off stage.

Last week I ended up doing behind the scenes work for the younger kids show, Peter Pan.  I tend to get sucked into projects without really intending to.  I stopped over at one of the kid’s rehearsals to drop off some piratey things (Who doesn’t have swords, bandanas, and eye patches in their closets?!?!)  and stayed to move set pieces, and then stayed to paint, and then stayed to .  .   . Well you get the idea.  It was time I hadn’t planned on investing, but it was incredible to be able to come alongside and help a group of kids who have worked so hard to put on a tremendous show. 

Everything this week went very well, but it wasn’t a perfect week.  It wasn’t perfect in part because I’m not always good at knowing what my own limits are.  Quite often I don’t want to admit that the limits exist.  However they do.  As much as I sometimes want to set aside things like sleep and meals and all of those basic needs in order to do big things I was reminded this week that when some of those “little things” are ignored everything else suffers.  My generally cheerful and mostly easy going personality becomes sharper and much more easily frustrated.  Plus without those basics my body just isn’t willing to do the things I ask of it, headaches come in full force and knees refuse to bend in quite the same way as they normally do.

This week was a reminder that sometimes, even when it’s hard because I can see work that needs to be done, I need to stop working and rest.  It was a reminder that during times when I am working hard I need to plan for the basics to bring along meals and that sort of thing.  It was also a wakeup call in some ways.  I desperately want to expand my current limits physically and mentally.

I have already been doing that to a certain extent in diet with the whole High Fat, High Protein, Low Carb thing.  That way of eating seems to be a good fit for me so far.  Beyond that though if I expect  to be able to do work that is past my current limits I’m going to have to be intentional about pushing my physical limits with .   .    . wait for it.    .    . Exercise.   I have never, ever been a good exerciser!!  I am strong, I am sporty but I have never liked exercising for the point of exercising.  I have a sweatshirt that has a picture of a person being chased by a T Rex with the caption “Exercise: Some motivation required”  I guess I need to find that motivation.  .  . Anyone have a T Rex I can borrow?  No?

Hopefully the vision I have for my future is enough motivation to start working at pushing my physical limits.  There’s things I want to be able to do, as soon as this summer, that mean I need to be able to walk for longer periods of time, I need to be able to run a bit,  I need to be able to lift and move with greater ease.  Thankfully I’m not overwhelmed by those thoughts; there have been times in my life when I would have been utterly and completely overwhelmed by all of these changes that I need to make.  However they aren’t things I need to do overnight, they aren’t things I need to do perfectly, and they aren’t impossible goals.  Besides that I have the promise that God’s grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness.   I also have a greater willingness in my own heart to obey the command “Whether you eat or drink whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord”  

So even though I slacked off on my blogging assignments this week, I learned a lot.  I learned more about my weaknesses and also about my strengths.  I also got to spend time getting to know as awesome group of kids better.  One of my favorite parts of this week was sneaking out into the audience at the end of each show, and cheering with all my might for the talented and smiling cast of Peter Pan.