Sometimes I feel guilty for identifying with songs that have nothing to do with what I pray about personally… But at other times I realize that this is what we do when we come together in worship. It is especially true when we come together in large groups that we don’t know all of the things that each person holds in their heart before the Lord. It is often the case that as we pray a general prayer asking for God’s intervention in a situation of collective interest, each person is also lifting a prayer asking God’s intervention in a deeply personal situation–and wishing that someone nearby only remembered to agree in prayer.
And so a song might give us some kind of framework with which we can lift those prayers together… As I sit beside a person whom I presume to know, but whose cares I may know nothing about, and I lift the song, perhaps I might share in the knowledge that they lift up a request similar to my own in that same form, and perhaps we might share the attitude of worship together.
My church choir is preparing an arrangement of “Gratitude” (Nichole Nordemann) to sing in November. As we sang the other night, my thoughts strayed to my upcoming eye surgery. I have had six surgeries prior to this, each at the same point when my vision was so depleted that it was unusable and each offering no promise concerning improvement. What an appropriate prayer to pray: “Lord, would you do this? But maybe not, and if not, then I will thank you, understanding that this new perspective offers its own blessings. … But would you, please?”
The song is so poignant, especially because we pray as a very blessed country and God does so often bless. As I face this surgery, though, I don’t feel like I am praying from the same perspective. God has always blessed in my surgeries. But each one is a reminder of the fragile state that I find myself in; and each time I pray over the surgery , I pray anew, never with the assurance of blessing. My eye, unlike the state of many people’s tables, is not well endowed with health. In fact, I have lived many times in my life in that state where I have thanked God from that different perspective as I have waited for a treatment to become available. I can live life as a blind person. I know how to trust in Him, and I know all the good blindness theology. But still I ask. This song is the most beautiful, humble expression of that theology that I have ever heard.
Go to YouTube if you can’t watch the embedded video.
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