O Father, You Are Sovereign

Several years ago a dear friend introduced me to the hymn,"O Father, You Are Sovereign." Written by Margaret Clarkson in the 1980s, the hymn writer affirms God's hand in all the affairs of life. The first verse looks at the creation, a Genesis approach to the power of the Word. Verse two defies the deist idea that God wound the universal clock and then walked away, leaving men's minds to keep the world running. Instead, as the disciples marveled, "Even the winds and waves obey Him"; nature submits to the power of the Word. Verse three strikes personally as it considers what C.S. Lewis wrote about in The Problem of Pain. What does God accomplish in the anguishes that accompany this life? Again, the power of the Word transforms pain and grief. Finally, without having answers to everything that assails us in this life, we trust and worship the One we know possesses all power.

O Father, You are sovereign
In all the worlds You made;
Your mighty Word was spoken,
And light and life obeyed.
Your voice commands the seasons
And bounds the ocean's shore,
Sets stars within their courses
And stills the tempests' roar.

O Father, You are sovereign
In all affairs of man;
No powers of death or darkness
Can thwart Your perfect plan.
All chance and change transcending,
Supreme in time and space,
You hold your trusting children
Secure in Your embrace.

O Father, You are sovereign
The Lord of human pain,
Transmuting earthly sorrows
To gold of heavenly gain,
All evil overruling,
As none but Conqueror could,
Your love pursues its purpose-
Our souls' eternal good.

O Father, You are sovereign!
We see You dimly now,
But soon before Your triumph
Earth's every knee shall bow.
With this glad hope before us
Our faith springs forth anew:
Our Sovereign Lord and Savior,
We trust and worship You!

The winds bluster outside today, but the Holy Spirit calms my heart, confident in God's sovereignty. May you find peace in the knowledge of Colossians 1:15-17

¹⁵We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. ¹⁶For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. ¹⁷He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. ¹⁸And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. The Message

Monday meditation

Mondays in retirement afford me the time to meditate on Sunday's worship. This morning I sat on the porch, sang several hymns accapella, prayed for a friend leaving on a mission trip this week, meditated on a prayer from Valley if Vision, and rethought yesterday's sermon from Matthew 6.
The wind of the Spirit blows across my mind, rustling my thoughts as the breeze gently turns the leaves over in the woods. Today I am processing my thoughts about the best sounds of Sundays out here. Dave and I now worship with a small congregation in Oakland; we currently have no pianist or organist, and we borrow the Episcopal Church for our services. The two sounds that draw my heart upward involve the hymns sung with harmony but no instruments and the swishing of pages in people's Bibles.
Happily, our worship leader, a frequent bass soloist in the Garrett County Choral Society, has a fantastic voice and leads well. But the richness that draws me to worship comes from the people singing harmony all around. The words minister truth and the harmony reminds us of the diversity in God's church. Different gifts can minister all week as God's people serve in various ways. And the other sound? Worshipers not only carry their Bibles, but they also turn to each passage, from the call to worship to the foundational passage for the pastoral prayer to the references made during the sermon. Like little Bereans, we follow each passage, personally seeking the truths of Scripture. The sound of those pages turning draws each heart to the main focus of worship: what do the Scriptures say.
I love the sound of people flipping pages in their Bibles! Interestingly enough, as I took a photo of my porch chair this morning, the breeze kicked in and turned the page in my Bible. Hope you have time for meditating on your Sunday worship.

And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain

You may recognize the above title as a line from the hymn, "O Worship the King, All Glorious Above." Today the rains came to western Maryland and I, driving home from having had a doctor's appointment in Annapolis, drove through sheer deluges as I came across I 68. So what "sweetly [distilled] in the rain"? Interestingly, enough, I often cast my eyes to the definition of "prayer" from the Shorter Catechism, attempting to memorize it as I drove. Having no DVD player and a limited number of radio channels provided the quiet time for concentration, and I held the paper as, phrase by phrase, I tried to cajole my addled brain cells into memorization.
The first phrase, "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will," gives me pause. Precise language impresses me; "an offering up" carries more impact than "an offering." I need to trust God, believing His sovereignty knows and ordains "things agreeable to His will," events that will bring Him glory and conform me more to His image. Fine, when all goes well, but what about the 34-year-old dad who died? That death returns me to meditating and surrendering my idea of how things should go "to God for things agreeable to His will." May the rain on the daisies help distill such a prayer offering.