by the pathway of duty
flows the river, flows the river of Gods grace
by the pathway of duty
flows the river of Gods grace.
(from By the Pathway of Duty)
perhaps it's better put-- "by the river of Gods grace is the pathway of duty". we are saved by grace through faith (hallelujah!), though i certainly recognize the vital importance of duty. i just think grace should come first...we don't tire ourselves walking the pathway of duty for a few moments of rest here and there in Gods grace. this leads us to legalism, dead religion. we bask in the sweetness of grace our whole lives, while keeping our promises to God (duty).
Prone to wander, Lord, i feel it,
prone to leave the God i love.
(from Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing)
why would i ever leave the God i love? i love Him! i'm not even prone toward this-- nothing in me desires to bail on this beautiful relationship. i am not prone to wander, i am prone to life-long covenant, and deep, passionate intimacy with this God whom i love.
You give and take away,
my heart will choose to say,
'Lord blessed be Your name'
(from Blessed Be the Name of The Lord)
certainly Biblical-- Job said it-- Job who received a painfully long rebuke from the Lord. i prefer to sing, "You give and You give and You give and You give!" the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but He comes to give life in all its fullness...we should be careful not to blame God for taking blessings away from us.
if He does take anything away-- it's our sin, guilt, shame, sickness, mediocrity, and punishment...only to give us abundant life. praise the Lord.
i'm not SURE if these lyrics are passable. until i decide i'm refraining from singing them, just in case, because...as we know...words have power.
9 comments:
Preach it Liv! You are so right!! You know what I think about "Pathway of duty . . . " And that verse from "Come Thou Fount" about "prone to wander" -- personally I NEVER sing those lyrics. The rest of the song is great, but instead I sort of sing under my breath something like "prone to stick with you 'til my dying breath" or the like. I read that the author of the song did in fact wander and leave the God he loved, for a season. Words certainly do have power.
Also, the "You give and take away", if I ever have a chance to set it up before the singing of it I do as you suggest -- What is it the LORD takes away from us? Sin, sickness, shame, fear, demons, etc. Blessed be THAT name indeed!
Keep preachin' it Liv.
jm
Liv-
I have been following your blog and LOVE your words, insight, passion and warrior spirit! I have been blessed by them all!
"Lyrics in question" made me burst with laughter (in a good way).
Your comments remind me conversations I have had in the past. Thank you for stirring up good memories and for preachin the truth to a new generation of listeners. Words definately have power!
and...OCTOBER GIRLS ROCK!
Love ya
KWH(if you have any questions about my identity, just ask JM)
OFM: I hesitate to disagree with the heavyweights on this issue, but here goes:
-Pathway of Duty. Here is a note from Gordon Taylor on this hit: "I THINK Sidney Cox would be surprised to hear that his song, ‘The Pathway Of Duty', has been misunderstood and regarded by some as theologically questionable. In his comments on the song, unfortunately omitted from the Companion To The Song Book for lack of space, Cox said: ‘We sometimes become so absorbed with what we have to do that we forget we can't do it at all apart from the grace that flows alongside the duty.'
"Surely the pathway of duty that he is talking about is none other than the path of Christian service - the life of holiness, the road of discipleship, the way of the cross. He is simply saying that alongside the path that we call duty, or service, there ever flows the river of God's grace.
"In an address entitled The Pathway Of The Holy, reproduced in The War Cry (26 November 1921), Commissioner Henry Howard said: ‘The way of holiness is a path of duty, not a pathway of ease and indulgence. We can never leave this practical thought out, whatever our topic may be, for holiness and hard work are inseparable. The eyes being open to see the need, the hand is ever ready to take up its task; and the labour of love being the sweetest of all occupations, work for God and souls becomes as a consequence a pure delight.'
"This way of holiness is the pathway of duty which Sidney Cox is referring to. It is the way of Christian discipleship - the narrow way that leads to Life.
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grace
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And, continuing where we left off:
"Give and Take Away"-
M+B Redman say this:
"A few weeks after 9/11, we wrote the worship song ´Blessed be Your Name´. It wasn´t written consciously in response to those dark events, but no doubt being immersed in the spiritual and emotional climate of those days was an important factor in birthing it. Many people ask if there was a particular life event which triggered off the writing of this song, and in all truth the answer is no. It´s really a song born out of the whole of ´life´, a realisation that we will all face seasons of pain or unease. And in these seasons we will need to find our voice before God. The church (and indeed the world) needs its songs of lament.
"The people of God have always had their laments. The Psalms are filled with a whole host of intense emotions and expressions towards God. So many of them were birthed in times of suffering and struggle. Psalm 3 was written as King David fled for his life from his own son Absalom. Psalm 56 was inspired when the Philistines seized him in Gath. In Psalm 57 he´s on the run again, this time from King Saul, and wrote the song whilst hiding in a cave. These are songs formed in the fire of affliction. They are the desperate cries of a worshipper on the road marked with suffering. In fact, Eugene Peterson estimates that around 70% of content in the Psalms is lament-based.
"Clearly therefore, songs of lament are a very biblical thing to sing in worship. Yet they are also a relevant thing to sing, for we live in a world full of anguish and heartache. As Christians, yes we live in victory, but in paradox we also exist as strangers in a foreign land, aching for home, and knowing deep within us that the world we see before is not as it should be. So the question is this: if songs of lament are firstly thoroughly biblical, and secondly extremely relevant, then why on earth are there not more songs to help us voice these heart-cries? As Frederich W. Schmidt Jr writes, these Psalms do three things:
"´They give us permission to ask our own questions about suffering. They model the capacity to ask questions we might otherwise suppress, but can never escape. And they model how those questions might be asked without fear of compromising our relationship with God or with other people.´
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Singing it recognizes God's sovereignty. It is humbling. The joint back-story of Job and Beth and Matt Redman's latter months of 2001 give the words a profundity lacking in some worship and usually steam-rolled over by an unaware congregation.
grace
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even where you may not be prone to wander, olivia, some are. some christians find it extremely difficult to 'stay in God's presence' (for want of a better term) all day. many who aren't in full time ministry spend their days without seeing overt poverty and bondage, and struggle to maintain their connection with God in the face of so many people who think they don't need Him. Many are prone to wander. The song isn't invalidated or made questionable just because you aren't.
L.x
I object to the song 'Joy in the Salvation Army' because it's a slap in the face of the ecumenical movement. 'You Don't Have to Be Clever' makes my blood curdle: Holy shoddy is still shoddy, I say. And how about 'They Shall Come from the East, They Shall Come from the West': don't you think it implies a kind of qualified universalism?
I personally think we should stick with 'Deep & Wide', on the condition that we skip straight to the last verse--you know, the one that goes 'Hm, and Hm. Hm, and Hm! There's a fountain flowing Hm and Hm!'
But in all seriousness, I think I should add in response to Mr. 'L.x' that Olivia's reticence to sing 'Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it' is, ultimately, not due to a belief that introspective psychological observation reveals that such statements as in every case false; rather, she would prefer not to make a negative confession in worship, i.e., to speak waywardness over her own spirit. In her view, to sing this lyric is precisely to utter a declaration of apathy and disobedience, which, according the 'words have power' theory regarding such confessions, can and will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Am I right, Liv? Holla back!
word, Neal.
love ya.
There is grace to fulfill one's duty is all...
My wife always has to correct me on this one... I still don't get "I would be giving and forget the gift..." everytime it's sung I have to turn to my wife and say "What does that mean again?"
It means that it doesn't matter if you get to your parents' place on Christmas Day and realise you've left their presents on the kitchen bench at home. You can still be giving, even though you forget the gift. ;-)
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