Tune My Heart

One of my favorite hymns over the years has been "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing". As I played it for church recently, I got to thinking about its words which were penned by Robert Robinson in the 1700s. Whether or not you're familiar with these words, they bear reading again:

Come, Thou Fount of ev'ry blessing, 

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing, 

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above; 

Praise the mount --I'm fixed upon it--

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer-- 

Hither by Thy help I'm come; 

And I hope by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, 

Wand'ring from the fold of God;

He to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wand'ring heart to Thee;

Prone to wander-- Lord, I feel it--

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart-- O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Our hearts need to be "tuned" to sing of God's goodness. After all, if the only thing we had to praise God for was our salvation from sin and an eternity in His presence, we still would have enough to keep us busy praising Him every moment of our lives. 

Charles Spurgeon once said, "God is so good that every moment of His love demands a lifetime of praise."* God's goodness is what, as Robinson wrote in his hymn, binds our wandering hearts to God. We are prone to leave Him, to get distracted and wander off spiritually. But the remembrance of His goodness to us should bring us right back to His feet, hearts tuned to sing His praise. 

Romans 2:4 states that "the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance". When we consider God's goodness, we are naturally led to a deeper realization of just how far short we fall in comparison. A heart tuned to sing God's praise is a grateful heart, but also a humble heart that acknowledges just how much God has done for us, and how gracious He was to do it, considering just how unworthy we are apart from Christ.

So as you get ready for church tomorrow, consider: is your heart tuned?

"I will sing unto the Lord, because He hath dealt bountifully with me." 

Psalm 13:6

*Spurgeon, Charles. The Practice of Praise p. 43-44

A Sinless Response to Suffering

This week I began reading through the book of Job in my time with God, as I do at least once every year. It's amazing to me just how rich a book this is, and how often it gets overlooked by Christians who label it as one of the "hard" books, right up there with Leviticus and Ecclesiastes. I won't say it's necessarily easy to read 37 chapters of anguish of soul, but there is so much for us to learn about God and our own trials through this account of Job's experiences. 

This time, as I read through the first two chapters, I was struck by what God said about Job's response to suffering. 

God allowed Satan to test Job's faithfulness by taking away all he had: livestock, servants, wealth, and, worst of all, his children. He was left with just his wife and the three servants who had escaped to bring Job word of what had happened.

Think about the enormity of his loss.

Now look at his response:

"Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (1:20-21)

First, he acknowledged his grief. He rent his clothes and shaved his head, as was customary in the culture of the day. But then, in his grief, he fell down upon the ground and worshipped. 

He acknowledged God's right to take what He had given Job in the first place. He did not blame God, he did not even ask why. He just surrendered to God's will. 

And then he praised God. 

What a remarkable thing to do. I don't know if I would think to praise God in light of such grief and loss, but that is what Job did. And lest we think he was somehow harmfully repressing his emotions, look at God's view of Job's response:

"In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." (1:22)

Job sinned not.

Right there, in the midst of a magnitude of loss most people will never even come close to experiencing, Job responded sinlessly. He did not blame God, he did not argue with God. He simply accepted what God had allowed and chose to praise Him in the midst of his grief. Though Job was a sinner, just like you and I, this was one thing God said he did right.

But Job's testing was not over: Satan again accused Job before God, this time citing Job's health as the source of his faithfulness to God. So God in His wisdom --and yes, in His goodness, too-- allowed Satan to bring upon Job an ailment that would cause constant and intense suffering. Then, in the midst of his physical and emotional agony, his own wife tells him to "curse God, and die." Supportive, huh?

This was Job's response to her:

"What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10)

This response shows Job's unshakable commitment to the truth that God has the right to do whatever He deems best. How ungrateful we are to eagerly take His blessings, only to complain when He allows them to be removed, as if they were ours all along!

I'm reminded of a quote from Anne of Green Gables, where Marilla tells Anne, "God does not want you for a fair-weather friend". 

When suffering comes, it is easy to focus on the trial, seeing nothing but darkness around us, but Job's response shows us that when darkness surrounds us, when pain engulfs us from every direction, we can look up and find peace of heart in knowing that God is in control. 

God approves of this response as well: "In all this did not Job sin with his lips." (10)

The sinless response to suffering is to look up, acknowledge God's sovereignty, and trust His unchanging goodness. It is to surrender to God's will, and to praise Him, not just in spite of, but because of what He has given and taken away. In short, it is to trust Him.

 Fully. Completely. Stubbornly. 

Trust Him. 

"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

James 5:11

Spurgeon’s 5 Tips for Remembering God’s Goodness

I recently found a little paperback on my parents’ shelves entitled: The Practice of Praise. I picked it up and realized it was by C.H. Spurgeon. I suppose I’m not used to seeing books by Spurgeon in paperback, which might be why I had never noticed it before. Well, anyway, I did notice it, and this past Sunday I sat down and read it. It took me about three times as long as it would have otherwise, because I kept having to stop and jot down quotes, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and there were many challenging ideas in it about the importance of praising God.

             

The book itself seems to be a collection of sermons on the topic of praise. The sermon which made up the first chapter dealt with remembering God’s goodness, which will of course prompt us to praise God. According to Spurgeon,

“We cannot utter what we have forgotten. Thus, we need close observation to establish a strong memory concerning the Lord’s great goodness.”*

He then goes on to state five ways we can do this. Here they are:

1. Be acquainted with the documents in which His goodness is recorded. -In other words, read your Bible! There is no better way of becoming versed in the goodness of God than to read about it in His Word! 

2. Diligently observe memorials. -The first two memorials he mentions are baptism and communion, both of which are memorials of the goodness of God demonstrated in Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. Spurgeon also mentions personal experience as a source of memorials. I know many people who celebrate their spiritual birthday with more enthusiasm then their physical birthday. As Spurgeon says,

 “O, dear heart, were you ever born again? Then you will remember His great goodness”**

Another way Spurgeon suggests using memorials is to use the objects around you as reminders of different aspects of God's goodness. For example, I have some objects in my room that were given to me by dear friends, and when I look at those things, I am reminded of God’s goodness to me shown through their kindness and love. There are other things that God has provided in response to a specific need, like my car. Whenever I drive my car, I am reminded of God’s goodness in providing for me. If you think about it, anything you own can be a reminder of God's goodness in some way or another.

3. Classification or Memory devices -As I read what Spurgeon had to say about these two categories, it all basically boiled down to what we now would call journaling. Spurgeon recommends that the forgetful Christian 

“Take care to set God’s mercies in order. Enumerate them as you can, and so fix them in your memory.”***

4. Utterance -Speak them! Whether to yourself, to your family, to Christian brothers or sisters, or to the lost world around you, God’s goodness is to be proclaimed!

5. Sing -This is similar to speaking, but it is a widely-acknowledged fact that putting words to music is one of the best ways to memorize them. Take any hymnal and you will find it full to overflowing with songs of God’s goodness. Having songs about God's goodness filed away in your heart and mind can be such a blessing. The other morning, I woke up with a song about God's goodness stuck in my head, and it was such an encouraging way to wake up! 

These are just a few ways to remind yourself of God’s goodness during these difficult days, but I hope you will find them as helpful as I have!

*Spurgeon, C.H. The Practice of Praise Whitaker House: Kensington. 1995 p.20

** Ibid. p.23

*** Ibid. p.24