Lord, show me Your way,
When I walk in the gray
Not in darkness, or in light
But the mists of my own sight.

Lord, how can I know
How to walk, and then to grow
In the fog, when I cry out
In the midst of fear and doubt.

Lord, I cannot stand,
Unless You’re with me in this land.
Lest then from Your path I stray
And be found out of Your way.

Lord, here in my storm,
Is little light and less of form.
Let me hear the blessed sound,
In trackless waste, of solid ground.

Lord, faith give to me,
That I may walk this stormy sea.
Let me trust now that Thy arm
Shall protect me from all harm.

Lord, I cannot steer,
My own course, through storms of fear.
Without Your light I soon should fail;
My soul be swamped, unless you bail.

Lord, when I shall guide
My own steps, from this side.
Then I cannot help but sink
‘Neath the waves and o’er the brink.

Lord, I cannot see
What Your will would have of me.
Let me cry, lest I should fall
Thy Word be my all in all.

Lord, please clear mine eyes
Balance all, and let me prize
In my heart Thy Word aright
That I may safe come through this fight.

Lord, now help me fight
Long as I stand within Your light.
Yet when clouds shall cover me
Let not my thoughts stray far from Thee.

Solid truth shall set me free
Bring safe to harbor, near to Thee
Let not me trust my darkened sight
Be thou, my Lord, my perfect light.

This event got me to thinking about the nature of creativity. I would hesitate to use the word “inspired”, because that implies a lot of other things. But this was one of the stranger experiences I’ve had with creativity…usually, I spend some time over a poem, constructing each verse and rhyme–rarely does anything of length come to me fully– (or mostly-) formed. Yet all our creativity stems from God, subcreationally, so should we be surprised when He takes different paths with it?

Note: I don’t have a tune for this, and so if anyone’d like to tackle it, shoot me a message! I did notice while I was writing this post that it fits fairly well with the traditional Celtic tune arranged by the Scottish band Runrig for “One Thing” on their The Stamping Grou

Such beams of sunlight are nothing more than that–bright light catching the dust or wisps of cloud in the air and lighting them up, much like a flashlight’s beam can be seen in a dusty room. Artists (particularly in computer graphics) call such beams of light “god-beams”, since people are fascinated with such ethereal phenomena–they appear to reach from heaven to earth and look so real, yet are intangible and hard to capture on film. The incredible sight that afternoon put me in mind of a few things appropriate to the Sabbath we were traveling through–the incredible beauty of even a broken world, and what Christ’s return may hold.

I’ve always been fascinated by hymns such as It Is Well With My Soul that speak to what our Savior and King’s triumphant return may look like (lyrics quoted below from Cyberhymnal):

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Such incredible, spine-tingling sights such as a brilliant patch of sunbeams breaking through the clouds from an unimaginable brightness make me think about what that day may look like. The Lord gives little-to-few details, but what he does mention hint at a pretty spectacular event. From 1 Thessalonians 4, 16–18 (ESV):

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Or Isaiah 34:4, also from the ESV:

All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

Whenever I see sunbeams like that, I think of His return. It may be just be the poet in me, but I imagine a clear sky, bluest of blues, cloudless…when suddenly like the sun breaking through the clouds, the true light of heaven breaks through into our world, out-shining the sun, and the very fabric of our reality rolls away. I have no doubt it will most likely happen differently, probably in a way unimaginable to me on this side of the event. But the thought excites me nonetheless…to crib from C.S. Lewis, when Christ returns, why, then it shall be spring!

May we always live in the knowledge that Christ is coming–neither to forget the Master is returning, nor to atrophy our talents idly waiting, for we are to be found working!

(I’m not delving into the niceties of interpreting end-times prophecies here, as legitimate as those discussions may be. Suffice it to say that I believe that the Second Coming of Christ is indeed set forth as a physical, actual, (if more-than-physical, as well) event that will occur, but has not yet. The details of the timing may indeed be a legitimate theological discussion, but this is not the forum or time to go into that.)

Though I am weak, sometimes weary
In times of trial I hide my face
In the balance, judge me wholly
Please don’t judge me
By my shame

In dark hours of confrontation
When words may fall too soon to unsay
Don’t mistake them for my true meaning
They are measures
Of my shame

Refrain:
I have tried to live life humbly
Not a coward, not in vain
When my meekness overcomes me
Remember me, not my shame
Not my shame

I am small and self-conscious
Every mirror reflects the grain
Judge my essence by my kinships
Remember me
Not my shame

I am weak, sometimes weary
Sometimes small, I hide away
When my hours are all accounted
Please don’t bind me
To my shame

Refrain

Ortega’s arrangements of traditional hymns, particularly little-known Celtic hymns, are among the best I’ve ever heard. His music is typically expressive, without being overly embellished–the hymns in particular are well-suited to sing along with. I hope you will find his music, as I do, unusually appropriate for a Sunday morning, and well worth listening to throughout the week.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I Am,
The King of Glory and of Grace!
One with Himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God

–Charitie L. Bancroft

When we are tempted to doubt our salvation or to despair because of the sin remaining in our lives, we need only to look to Jesus, to remember what he has done. We should no longer let Satan tell us that we still owe him service. The price has been paid and we are free. “Upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free… It was a joyous thought on this Sunday morning, to remember that we are no longer slaves but free, because God is willing and satisfied to look on his sinless Son and pardon us! Let us never lose sight of that incredible, overwhelming truth.

1. I had been out of touch this week, preparing for exams, and so when the pastor found out that we would have extra people for the service and would be using our backup hymnals, he went ahead and picked hymns so that he could verify that they were in both hymnals. No problem…yet.

2. I get the message such a short time before the service that I didn’t get to talk to the pastor about it.

3. When I read the list, I realized that two of the five hymns he had picked I didn’t even know! Needless to say, I couldn’t get to talk with him before I had to lead them. He had printed them in the bulletin this week, so there was no going back!

4. When I look up the hymns, I find that one is in 6/4 and the other in 6/8 time–both of them REALLY hard to conduct, at least compared to 3/4 or 4/4.

5. I’m pretty good at sight-reading, so I just ask the pianist to play the first hymn through once before we sing it…

6. Somehow, I manage to figure out the tune and lead the singing. Didn’t sound like many others knew the tune either, but it wasn’t the worst singing I’ve ever heard. When I finished, the pastor stood up and asked us to sing the second verse over again–a capella!

Somehow with the Lord’s help I managed to get through it without disgracing myself. When I talked to the pianist later (our pastor’s daughter) she was shocked I didn’t know them–apparently they are both old favorites in her family. Memo to self: I think next week I’ll make sure to correspond with the pastor and pianist about the hymn selections a couple days ahead of time!

Feeling somewhat more humble about his hymn leading now,

John Calvin Young