Today’s Scripture Reading (June 1,
2015): Genesis 16
In 1926,
Presbyterian minister Daniel Iverson wrote what has become one of the most enduring
choruses of the Christian Church – “Spirit of the Living God.” The melody of
the song only uses five notes. But it might be this simplicity that has
endeared the song to many. It has been used literally since the day Iverson
wrote it as an invitation to prayer. Iverson wrote it while attending revival
services featuring the George T. Stephans Evangelistic Party. Impressed by the
messages that he had heard, Iverson wrote the song. Birdie Loess, the pianist
for the Stephan’s team wrote it down on paper and the song leader, E. Powell
Lee, immediately began to teach it to the people who were gathering every night
for the meetings.
The song
itself is an invitation to God to shape us, fill us and put us to use. But that
last phrase, use me, has fallen into some disrespect. We understand what is
meant by it, and I think all of us want to be used by God. More precisely, I
think that we all have a desire to fulfill a purpose in this life. None of us want
to reach the end of life and feel that we have accomplished nothing. It is
precisely that belief that leads thousands to attempt to commit suicide every
year – they have come to believe that they don’t matter and that the world
would be better off without them. We need to be used. But we also live in a
culture that has long learned to use and dispose. It is not just the things of
our lives that we treat that way, too often we use the people in our lives and throw
them away too. And that has become a huge problem for our culture.
Hagar had
been used all of her life. She was a servant of Sarai (who later would become
Sarah). She not only had been used by Sarah, but she had been abused by her. No
one really wanted her, all they wanted was to take what she had and dispose of
her. And the bottom line was that they wanted to take from Hagar was the son
that she had conceived with Abraham. Even her own son was not hers, it was to
be Sarai’s. And Hagar – she would be discarded along with everything else that
had been used up.
So Hagar
runs away. And here in her running she meets with God. What impresses Hagar
about her meeting with God is that he was the only one who seemed willing to
see her – really see her. Everyone else just looked past her, but God chose to
look at her – to see her, and to love her, not just use her. Hagar already knew
that God hears, that is the name that she had given to her son, Ishmael
(Ishmael means “God Hears). But now she calls God by another name, El-Roi. This
is the only place in the entire Bible where God is called by this name – El-Roi
means “The God Who Sees Me.”
We all need
to be seen, especially in our culture that seems to want to do nothing but use
things and people up. I know that this is not the meaning that Daniel Iverson
intended for his song – and I doubt that we will ever be able to get the
language of “using us” out of the church, even though connotation involved in “using”
seems to be increasing in its negative overtones. But maybe as we sing Daniel
Iverson’s song as a personal prayer, we can change the words -
Spirit
of the Living God, fall fresh on me.
Spirit of the Living
God, fall fresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill
me, see me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.
Because what
we really need in our culture is simply to be seen.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis
17
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