Yesterday, I was flipping through the guitar music for the hymnal we use at church. Nearly every time I would grab a stack of pages to turn them over (as you have to do with huge three-ring binder systems), I would open to “Be Thou My Vision”. My history with this hymn is full of holes. I had heard it hear and there through the years, but can’t remember ever singing it in the church I grew up in, so I was fairly unfamiliar with it.
Until yesterday, that is.
I spent an hour or more before the morning’s church services and a couple more today, following the music and searching for a key with which I was comfortable. Then, I dug out the actual vocal hymnal and took a look at the lyrics. (The guitar hymnal only has the first verse. Slackers, I know.)
My initial reaction was, “Wow, what an awesome song.” The music alone is beautiful, taken from an Irish folk melody, but the words are powerful. It moves me deeply, especially with the things currently taking place in my life.
I accepted Christ as my personal Saviour in the fall of 1990; I was six. Throughout the 19 years since then, there have been many aspects of faith that I have struggled with, some more than once. If there’s a repeat-offender, it’s a reluctance (sometimes, it feels like an inability) to set my affection on things above (Colossians 3:2). Not that I don’t desire those things above, but more and more, I am distracted by the things of this world.
Recently (literally, in the last weekend), I’ve begun to pray that peripheral distractions would remain just that – peripheral, that my eye would be singular (Matthew 6:22) and that my delight would be in the Lord (Psalm 37:4). That verse in Psalm reads, “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” It has often been preached that this refers to receiving that which your heart desires, but I disagree. To me, that verse teaches that the desires of your heart will shift from things of this world, to things of the Lord when you delight in Him.
If I desire anything right now, it is to be after God’s own heart.
Be Thou My Vision (An ancient Irish hymn, translated from the original tongue by Mary E. Byrne and versified by Eleanor H. Hull.)
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art–
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son.
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
I’ll leave you with this passage of scripture found in Philippians, chapter 3, verses 7 and 8.
“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”