For the last couple of days, I have been asking myself, what could have gone wrong? What could be done? Is there anything that can help the situation? Desperation again. And desperation only drives me to one point. Desperation drives me to God. To seek Him for that answer that I believe can solve the impossible problem. My mind is just filled with the situation, the problem, the people that are hurting. My heart is hurting too. My eyes are often filled with tears. I know deep in my heart, these are people with love for God, love for His people, love for His ministry. Yet they can't seems to find a way out, they can't find peace with one another, they are holding on for that passion they have but they are also wondering if they should give up because that passion is diminishing.
How, God, how do we help people to serve you without feeling hurt or hurting one another?
So after dwelling in this for the last few days, after spending time praying and worshipping, after talking to my pal, and after coming to my own conclusion that this is not the burden that I should be taking up, this song came and as usual, a song that speaks so loud that I know the answer lies in this song.
Fill my eyes oh my Lord
With a vision of the cross.
Fill my heart
With love for Jesus, the Nazarene.
Fill my mouth with thy praise,
Let me sing through endless days
Take my will,
Let my life be wholly thine.
The composer of the song probably knew that we are often distracted, disheartened, disillusion by things around us. We get upset, angry with situation. We give in and then give up. We blame people, we blame the church, we blame the leaders, we blame everyone. And so when this song is written, he probably had in mind that in every situation we are in, if we had filled our eyes with the problems we see before us, if we had filled our hearts with anger and disappointment and if we had filled our mouths with complains and angry words, we would have lost the true meaning of following and serving God.
But this is not how it should be. That our eyes should be kept at the cross, and that vision of the cross is a symbol of love & sacrifice for the reconciliation of man to God. There is pain, blood and even death at the cross, but then again the cross of Jesus is different from the rest. There is also hope, love & life (resurrection).
And in our hearts, Jesus and only Jesus should be enthroned. And only when our hearts is fully occupied by Christ alone, we can understand the love for people that surpasses all knowledge. We will then not be concerned about the things people do or do not do but we will truly be concerned about the person because Jesus' heart is for His people.
Eph 3:16-19 "...out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
And our mouths are such powerful weapons, that could either build or destroy. Our mouth can be a fountain of life* or an instrument used by the devil who is full of lies. And so we filled our mouths with praises. We need to replace angry words with words of kindness and encouragement. And if we find it so hard to speak good, then praise God first. There is no wrong in God so there could only be praises.
When we can fill us our eyes with the vision of the cross, our hearts with love for Jesus, our mouths with praise, when we can do these things, I think we can then be in total surrender to God and say, this situation, this impossible, insolvable situation, God, not my will but yours be done.
The outcome seems to be the same. But the posture is different. The first outcome is giving up and the latter is lifting up. The first reaction is God, this is beyond me so I am not going to be bothered by it anymore because I can't think of a solution. The latter is surrender unto the Lord because I have my eyes fixed on Him. The latter is understanding that GOD is in full control, not man. He is our sovereign God.
*Prov 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
