My life is lived with a soundtrack always playing in my head.  It’s quite eclectic, consisting of such things as Disney songs (from “Aristocats” to “Winnie the Pooh”), pieces of musicals (“Annie Get Your Gun” to “Yentl”), commercial jingles all the way back from childhood (“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener….”), and Veggie Tale songs  (Who can forget “Oh, Where is My Hairbrush?”), but more of my repetoire consists of modern praise choruses, Sripture songs from college days, and, my favorites, lots and lots of classic hymns.  I love old hymns!  I can probably sing at least the first verse of the majority of the songs in my old hymnbook without having to even think.  This is a handy thing when it’s just part of the soundtrack of my day and I really need my mind focused on the task at hand, but it’s also a “not good” thing; there are some pretty heavy meanings to those lyrics that I would do well to pay attention to.

I think one of the scariest is “Take My Life and Let It Be”.  What do I actually ask God to take complete charge of in this simple hymn?  Only everything I am, everything I do, everything I say, everywhere I go, and everything I own!  I confess, however, that far too often a more accurate rendering of the song would be:

Take my life, and let it be.

All I care about is ME!

Take my feet?  You just don’t know

All the places I need to go.

Take my moments? There’s no way!

I need each second of every day!

(You see, my list of things to do

Is far too long for even You!)

Take my silver and my gold –

But my Visa card I’ll hold!

Lips and voice?  Those are mine, too,

I’ll say whatever I want to.

Have my heart to be Your throne?

There is room for ME alone!

Tell you what, Lord, let’s just say

You can have what is LEFT today!

I think it’s my moments that are the hardest for me to give up.  I like plans and schedules.  I almost never get to actually follow one, however.  A constant crop of interruptions, distractions and the unexpected interferes.  I have a mental roadmap of the way things are “supposed” to go, and can get admittedly grumpy when they are forced to take a detour!

However, lately I’ve been pondering Psalms 31:15 which says, “My times are in Your hands…”  It’s easy for me to see God as holding the grand sweep of my whole life, but how should I apply this verse to the minute-by-minute of my time here on earth?  Maybe what I see as “interruptions” to my business are, in fact, His real business!   I need to hold MY plans lightly, in the full knowledge and acceptance that He may change those plans at any time.  I need to look for Him in the interruption.

For example, last week, a friend was unable to make it to our weekly ladies Bible study because she mislaid her car key on her way to the front door.  Fuss, fume, weep, “But Lord, I NEED to be there!”  (And those of us at church, “Lord, we WANT her here!!”)  However, because she WAS home that morning she was able to take a very important call from a friend!  The frustration of missing the activity she planned was swallowed by the greater joy of what she didn’t miss.  God doesn’t always make the picture that clear, of course.  I think most of the time we aren’t given any explanation for what was really going on.  But incidences like this remind me to trust that, whether or not He reveals it to ME, He is accomplishing His purposes in that detour.  Since my times are in His hands, I can relax and enjoy the journey instead of worrying so much about getting to my destination on time, following my route.

I’ll write more…. when I get a moment!