Each one has a hymn: Blessed be your name
In two previous posts, I asked how singing can be edifying to the church and offered one example of how we have attempted to make singing more edifying by attaching the lyrics of the songs to our lives. (See my posts “Each one has a hymn” and “Each one has a hymn: Singing for edification.”) In two other posts, I explained how a brother shared how the song “Jesus draw me ever nearer” in his own life and in doing so edified the whole church and how a sister who had just been diagnosed with cancer (again) edified the church by sharing the hymn “Joy to the World.” In this post, I’m going to share another example of a song that was shared in our gatherings over the last few weeks. This time, it’s a song that I shared with the church… one two different occasions.
Last week, I was with a group of adults and teenagers serving people in Norfolk, VA area in Jesus’ name by working on their homes. Our crew chief, who had more experience with construction than the rest of us, was a great encouragement and help to all of us. Toward the end of one day of work, he got a phone call from his wife. She told him that she received the lab results of some tests that she had taken earlier. It turns out that she was being diagnosed with stage one breast cancer.
After we cleaned up our work site that day, we circled around our crew chief to encourage and prayer for him as he and his wife were getting ready to face this battle with cancer. As we were encouraging him, he encouraged us as well with his trust in God in spite of these circumstances.
I recommended that we sing “Blessed be your name” (by Matt Redman) together. So this is what we sang:
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your nameBlessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name[prechorus]
Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say[chorus]
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameBlessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your nameBlessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Our crew chief wrote about this time together. This is what he wrote to encourage others:
“Today as I was hanging a storm door, I got a call from my wife confirming stage one breast cancer. My crew driver overheard the conversation and asked if he could share with our crew. I said yes, so he called the crew together and shared our story. Our crew closed circle, held hands, and offered up prayers; we then sang ‘Blessed Be Your Name’. We serve an awesome God who placed this crew in my path when I needed to be lifted up.”
After we returned home from our trip to Norfolk, I shared this story with the church here, and again we sang this song together. Once again, people shared how God had proved himself strong and faithful even in “the desert place.”
We’ve found that sharing songs like this in the midst of life as part of our circumstances and situations helps our singing to be more edifying than if we simply sang the songs without discussing the significance to our lives.
so encouraging to hear this brother! Amen!
In the midst of adversity, praises, singing, brings victory. If remembering right in the Old Testament, during King Jehosaphat day and there were three armies coming against him and King Jehosaphat cried out to the lord. Now the point I am making here is the army, sent its praise and worhip out in front of them, which confused the three armies that had come after them and the three armies killed each other. God always has the victory. So lets send praise and worship out when beiing attack and let the enemy be confused at our joy in the midst of adversity, for John 16:33 says to not fear for Christ has overcome the world.
Thank you for posting this without the bridge that is often sung with it quoting Job’s ill-informed and misguided theology so eloquently corrected by Jesus 😉
John,
Thanks. I’m glad this was encouraging to you. It was an encouraging time for us as well.
Howard,
Yes, and that’s what we reminded each other about as we talked about and sang this song.
Steve,
I struggle with that part of the song as well. Thanks for the comment!
-Alan
Thanks for sharing your encouraging time. It’s encouraging 🙂
and
we also sang that song!! this past Sunday together at our FIRST gathering we had at “church house” — Chris’s house! unfinished but ready for us – it was AWESOME!!!!
Randi,
Awesome indeed!
-Alan
Alan, the way I look at it, Job 1 tells us who did the “taking” (Satan) and Jesus said that the thief comes to steal and destroy but he (representing and revealing the Father) came to give life. So when Job said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away”, I can only conclude that he was severely mistaken.
Am I missing anything in that progression?
So when people sing that bridge, it really troubles me. Just because the Bible records someone saying something doesn’t mean that what they said was true.
To the point of the post, I completely agree that personal experiences shared (either experienced together or personal experiences that are told to others) can make a song much more meaningful. I’ve often enjoyed reading stories behind the writing of many of the church’s hymns and worship songs.
interesting!! actually never thought of it the way you’re describing.
I was always thinking about it like He gives (life, healing, light, peace, joy, righteousness and on and on) and takes away (guilt, shame, sin, darkness, on and on and on)
I did not even know it was a direct scripture reference.