Name that Tune...

If I start singing the words: “I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry...” Do you know what song I am singing? What if I kept going “...All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save...” I could start on the chorus...

But I didn’t actually even need to get that far. Or through the first line, for that matter. Although it took me until line two to make the connection...

My family reads devos together at dinner time. “Keys for Kids” has long since been replaced as we’ve grown and over the last couple years we’ve taken to reading from “Our Daily Bread”...starting with reading the Bible passage and surrounding text and finishing with the day’s devotional. I, with my theology degree, love to have an official end be a discussion about how the devo did or did not do a good job of biblical exegesis and interpretation; how the passage could have been better applied; or, how the illustration could have been more appropriately tied into a different passage of scripture.

Tonight I was tired and not feeling my best and was content to merely listen without argument (friendly though it may be) and without critique. The devotional had to do with being willing to love across the cultural divides, to be willing to show the light of Christ in midst of a very different and very dark world. “That’s nice.” I thought. Not disagreeing but feeling like their presentation was a little weak.

And then they ended with some sort of “How will you share God’s love across the cultural divide?” challenge.

At which point, it occurred to me I was humming a song.

And I listened to the words in my head “I, the Lord of sea and sky...”

I smirked and half-groaned and, as my family closed in prayer, I raised my head and whispered “Okay, I get it...”

Have you named that tune?

The chorus breaks into: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?...”

It just happens to also be the song which I believed, at the time, to confirm and affirm my newly chosen youth ministry degree.

I don’t believe much in coincidence. A friend reminded me this weekend of the fact that, if we allow it, everything...every conversation, every instance, has the potential to be a divine appointment. I love this traditional hymn, but I would question why it would all the sudden come to mind without reason. And why after such a challenge... if not to signify something I have felt stronger and stronger and stronger over the last few weeks – God wants me for ministry. He’s set me aside for it. Why me, I have no idea.

I can do any other job in-between, probably. God hasn't told me "no". But, at some point, I, heart, mind, body, and soul, am never going to be satisfied until I’m stuck in the middle of something He is doing. Doing in way that the all of who I am is given to it...not just as a part of my bigger picture – but AS my bigger picture. Though for the life of me, I still can’t put a finger on what. My restless spirit waits.

What do you do when you feel like in a “call to be faithful”, the “call” is becoming more and more intense and the “faithful” is becoming more and more ambiguous? My only response, the only one I can think of, is Samuel’s. “Speak, for your servant is listening"... (1 Samuel 3)

Here I Am, Lord