In quite a few Churches across the UK, over the last few years there has been a song that has been sung: ' you give and take away, you give and take away, but my heart will gladly say ' blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be His name'' . I don't know whether i find it easier to forget God when times are good or when times are bad.
There are times in our life when things are going really well. I am not talking about when you are taking steps of faith and God is obviously there. No, cause they are times i know i thank God for what he does. For example when i started Nottingham YfC, we were living by faith and every meeting every school we started partnerships, every bit of money we got in, was given credit to God. It was obvious.
What i am talking about is when things are going well, we start to take things for granted and we are comfortable with where we are. We seem to forget about past struggles and what God does for us to keep us in that place, day to day miracles, conversations etc.
So we would think that when bad times happen, then we would remember God and ask Him to help us, to guide us, to comfort us. But we don't do we? Our default tends to be to blame God. To tell Him it was all His fault. I have been continually reminded and challenged by a news article i saw 2 days after the Haiti disaster, it was a group of Christians that were just praising God, and as they were interviewed they said that whatever happens God is their father in heaven, and that they didn't understand why, but they knew that God would be there to comfort.
WOW what an interview, how can we forget about God? How can we blame Him for the bad stuff that happens? I know from my experience that a lot of the stuff that goes wrong in my life is my fault, then other things that are hard can be attributed to people around me making strange decisions, and then there is the unexplainable bad things. But to blame God is a bit of a cop out. How can i claim that God is love and then say it is His fault for things that are wrong?
Not just the things that don't go the way i want, but things that are fundamentally wrong. I would be a hypocrite then.
So yes, things don't always go well, I don't get things right, but whether life is good or bad, whether I have honoured God or dismissed Him in the past, i now choose to say 'Blessed be your name.'
We sang Blessed Be Your Name at my dad's funeral tuesday. As I look back on his life it's so amazing how much the MS had taken away, but yet even through the tough times, the times where he could have blamed God and been angry, he wasn't. He truly lived that song...and I hope that I can be as strong in my faith, and have the same attitude that my dad had his whole life 'Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering blessed be Your name. You give and take away, my heart will choose to say Lord blessed be your name.'
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