I Need to Apply Verse Three More Often (Especially One Phrase)
I am typing these words on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I’m just getting kind of settled in after worshiping with our church family and going with some of them to sing at a local nursing home. I hope that I can get what I’m thinking finished before it is time to worship again this evening.
Somewhere along the line, it seems to have been a common practice to omit the third verse of a hymn that has four verses. I’m not sure when or where that practice started, but it is not an uncommon one.
This morning, our song leader led us as we sang a hymn that is probably familiar to most of us: Take Time to be Holy. I can’t even begin to estimate how many times I’ve sung that familiar hymn. I’m reasonably sure I’ve even sung all four verses more than once. That’s what we did this morning. We sang all of the verses.
For some reason, verse three made an impact on me today that it has never done before. In case you’ve forgotten or cannot remember the words, here they are:
Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.
Most of us are familiar with and do our best to follow some of the concepts in that verse. We understand, at least intellectually, that the Lord is supposed to be our guide, that we are to follow the Lord, and that we are to trust in His word.
What I had never considered until I heard the words come out of my own mouth is, that, in order to do that, I am also to run not before Him. I will not take the time or space here to mention the times recorded in God’s Word when people acted in haste and/or were not patient enough to allow the Lord to work things out on His schedule. Suffice it to say that there are several instances of that in that inspired volume.
Instead of making a Bible study of this subject, I need to think of a guy who needs to understand that his time table and the Lord’s timetable may not be the same. All too often, he has a problem understanding why things are not happening when he thinks they should happen.
Unfortunately, that guy is the one I see when I look into the mirror. Maybe I need to consider the words of another hymn which are taken from Isaiah 40:31:
…they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Is. 40:31)
If you know anybody like me, you may want to encourage him or her to join me in trying to learn to allow the Lord to indeed be the lord and to operate on His timetable. It finally dawned on me that, if I am not able to do that, there may be a question as to whether or not Jesus is, in fact, my Lord.
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
