Comments on "Take My Life" from xanga.com  by vocal composer

Monday, July 17, 2006

... ever, only, all for Thee.

"While we cannot realize the infinite love that fills eternity, we can see that love magnified in the microscope of the moments.  But we do not see this while the moments are kept in our own hands.  We are like little children, holding onto diamonds.  How can they receive and reflect the rays of light while they are shut up tight in our dirty little hands?  Give them up!  Let the father hold them for us and shine his own great light upon them.  Then we shall see them full of the fair colors of his manifold loving kindnesses.  Then they shall surely be filled with praise!  Praise will be the color, the tone, the atmosphere in which they move!  Is it too much for them all to flow in ceaseless praise?"

-- Frances Ridley Havergal

I realized for the first time today how very little I truly have that I can call "my own."  I was delighted to discover that instead of feeling panicked and depressed at this thought, it was surprisingly comforting.  I've spent so much of my life trying to "get" as much for myself as possible, to be the one to come out on top.  I had to be the smartest, the most talented, the most ambitious, the most cut-throat.  I had to not only beat the competition - I had to annihilate it.  Yet today, I saw clearly that in spite of it all, I really have nothing apart from what God has given to me.  And what little I have is given to me to serve God with, and to bring him glory.  I've been holding diamonds in my dirty little hands when all the time God has wanted to show me what he created them to do - and that is to shine the "fair colors of his manifold loving kindnesses."  And I've been hiding them away like Bilbo hid his ring from Gandalf in Fellowship of the Ring, thinking all the time that God wanted them for himself, projecting my own twisted, selfish motives onto him.

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

 
As always, God responds with typically divine, supreme sense of humor.  This Sunday, instead of a sermon we had a guest speaker in the service, Dr. Julisa Rowe, who did a dramatic presentation called "Take My Life."  She performed it as Frances Ridley Havergal, the author of the hymn by that title.  The 40-minute presentation used the hymn as "a guide toward consecration, encouraging the audience to also make a commitment to give all to God."  As usually seems to happen (because God is the opportune, cosmic comic), the incredible thing was that many of the things she shared from Havergal's early life are things that I'm dealing with right now.

One thing she said early on struck me right away.  She was describing an experience at her first school, Belmont, a revival of sorts where "religious topics became common subjects of conversation among the girls.  As one and another spoke in such terms of confidence and gladness, my heart used to sink within me.  It seemed to utterly unattainable."  I've felt this way for years, looking at Christians around me (even my peers) who seem to have deep, rejoicing relationships with Christ that I simply can't grasp, and thinking that I somehow missed the proverbial boat, that as with a word problem I've missed some vital, obvious clue that would solve all the conundrums and make life blazingly clear.  Now I see that this was never the point.  It was always much simpler than that.

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.

Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.

Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.

As I thought about this stanza, I was suddenly reminded of a scene from my childhood that I hadn't thought about for a very long time.  I was probably six or seven years old, standing in church with my parents singing a hymn, and I distinctly recall jumping onto a harmony part and suddenly becoming aware of the fact that I was the only one singing the harmony part - and that it sound good.  I suppose it was one of the first truly vain, prideful moments in my life.  Ever since then I have struggled (as in the struggle of a drowning person) in vain against that choking pride.  As Julisa Rowe (as Frances Havergal) said yesterday,

We cannot be all for Jesus as long as our voice is not for him.  So which will it be: all for him, or part for him?  How many of us pray, "Keep the door of my lips" when the very last thing they think of expecting is that they will be kept.  No, they make up their minds that hasty or foolish or exaggerated words will slip out and that it can't be helped.  What they meant is that not so many might slip out.  As their faith went no farther, the answer went no farther.  Either we have committed our lips to the Lord or we have not.  This question must be settled.  Have you trusted him to keep your lips today?  You may have tried, and tried very hard.  But you have not trusted, and so you have not been kept, and your lips have been the snare of your soul.

I was also convicted today (as I have been for some weeks) about the language that I use.  Somewhere along the way I picked up the nasty habit of cursing and swearing like a sailor whenever I get frustrated or angry.  I've always tried to be discreet about it, but some of it slips out when I'm not thinking about it.  (Some of it slipped out during the production of Narnia when things went awry.)  I've tried and tried to master my tongue, but to no avail, and so my lips have been the snare of my soul.  But now I realise that all this time I have not really believed that God can keep the door of my lips.  I compromised and was not willing to turn back.  So have I committed my lips to the Lord or haven't I?  Can I commit my soul to my Savior?  If Christ died for all, why should he not have died for me as well.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.

Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.

"If our hands are full of other things, they cannot be filled with the things that are Jesus Christ's.  There must be emptying before there can be any true filling."

Yesterday as we sang the final two stanzas of the hymn, I found myself getting very emotional, which doesn't happen very often.  I can't quite explain why, because I'm still not sure myself, but a flash of hope came over me suddenly.  I could surrender my will to God.  I could be freed from the tyranny of self.  I could be ever, only, all for him.  I realised (as I said above) that I have very little that I can call my own, and what little I do have I have squandered and wasted like the Prodigal that I am.  I realised that apart from Christ, I have very little reason to live, so why should I not live entirely for God?