Precious Lord

We all go through extremely difficult times. You may be going through one right now. That may be why you stumbled on this page. Two years ago today, my mom passed away surrounded by all of her children. . . except Mark who died shortly before mom. There were 8 of us children. Now we are the older generation. My wife and I have lost our parents. of course, we are in our 70's so that is to be expected, I guess. Still hurts. We've lost a daughter and two granddaughters. Shirley lost two sisters, I've lost one brother. Lots of friends. I suppose if we live long enough we could be all alone. But there is a lot of pain in losing family, especially our children.

This weekend Shirley and I didn't go anywhere. We didn't even go to church. Shirley read me her devotions. We watched some ball games and our granddaughter Irene's semi-final soccer match which was televised. Mostly, we just enjoyed each other. We didn't want the weekend to end. There are no guarantees. We don't know how long we will have together.

Today I was studying Psalms 80. Verse 4 reads, "O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?" What? How could God be angry with our prayers? The last verse says "Restore us, O LORD God of Hosts; cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved." Saved from what?

The Hebrew word that is translated angry is עשן ('ASHAN). Chaim Bentorah says that there are seven different words for anger in Hebrew and none of them are 'ashan. You can click the link if you would like to read his Word study. עשן ('ASHAN) means: Foggy, clouded, or not clear.  How can God's face shine upon us when it is foggy, or cloudy. We try to seek God, but we can't see Him. If being able to communicate with God is so important, why is it so hard. 

​Chaim tells the story of how the gospel singer, Tommy Dorsey wrote what became Martin Luther King Jr's favorite song. Tommy had lost his wife in childbirth and his son the next day. He was in such grief that he sat down at the piano and began to wail: "O Lord, O. Lord, O'Lord." We will all go through those "Oh Lord" times. A friend said, "Don't call Him Lord, call Him "Precious Lord." As Tommy looked up and said "Precious Lord," the cloud slowly began to evaporate. With the cloud lifting, he wrote the words to the song, "Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, help me stand. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storms, through the night, Lead me on, to the light. Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home."

It is ok to sit down, or even get on your knees and raise your hands if you are alone. Play the song, Precious Lord. Let the cloud slowly evaporate so that you can see God's face shining with love. You can feel him hug you. He is your daddy. You are going to be ok.