Be Thou My Vision

Over the past two years I have been blessed to be able to serve on HeartSong. The experiences I have had with this ministry have shaped my life and walk with Christ. One lesson that I have been learning for the past two years has been what it means to be truly satisfied in Christ. I have been constantly reminded of this lesson because of the song “Be Thou my Vision.” I have thought through the lyrics of this song and my emotional response has been different many times. Sometimes I am in awe when I think about how God has been faithful to be everything that he is described to be in this song while at other times I am completely convicted of my sin and laziness in not being the person that I am called to be by Scripture. This song reminds me of how I should be living my life. How I should be choosing to make God absolutely everything. In reality nothing else will satisfy apart from Christ. No amount of money, fame, or love will ever be able to compare with the immeasurable grace and love that comes from God, my heavenly Father.

So what does this have to do with summer tour on HeartSong? Lots actually. As I reflect on the verses and chorus of “Be Thou my Vision,” I find that they coincide perfectly with my summer tour experiences.

Be Thou my Vision oh Lord of my heart

Not be all else to me save that Thou art

Though my best thought by day or by night

Waking or sleeping Thy presence my Light

This summer I have had to trust God to be my vision. In my previous blog I wrote about breaking my toe after the first week of camp and as a result I was not allowed to be physically active. This was not in my vision for the summer, however it was in God’s. Because I was not allowed to move I got to sit and talk with students all day. I didn’t have to be running around to be talking about Christ. I could be still and God was there.

Be thou my Wisdom and Thou my True Word

I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord

Thou my Great Father and I Thy true son

Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one

One of the sweetest parts of this summer were the times I was able to dwell deeply with the Lord. One of those times occurred at Seneca Lake. It was a place where the peace of God was extremely evident. Right outside my room was a beautiful lake. Every morning I would get up early and sit in the stillness and listen for the voice of God. This time of sweet communion with my Lord was the force that kept my energy up. Because of the time I spent with God in the morning the passages I was reading came to my mind over and over again throughout the day and the conversations I had with students were very sweet.

Riches I heed not nor man’s empty praise

Thou mine inheritance now and always

Thou and Thou only be first in my heart

High King of heaven my treasure Thou art

For the last three weeks of tour my team was at Harvey Cedars, which is a camp on the beach in New Jersey. For the last two weeks of camp I hung out with one church. The first week was the high school students and the second week was the middle school students. It was an awesome two weeks of ministry. The first week one of the girls from this youth group named Rebecca came up to me and introduced herself. Right away I knew that this was the girl that God had put in my path to talk with that week. She immediately expressed her desire to be genuine and open with me even though she felt that the church has lost its genuineness. So each day we would go to the beach and talk about our lives. She would ask questions about the Bible and we would talk about Christ. On the last evening of camp her youth group went to the beach and I sat with Rebecca and her small group and they shared prayer requests and I got to pray over the girls. The brokenness and restoration that God was working in the lives of the girls was beautiful to see. It was evident that those girls needed Christ and the wonderful part was that they were finding him.

High King of heaven my victory won

May I reach heavens joys oh bright heavens sun

Heart of my own heart whatever befall

Still be my Vision oh Ruler of all

This past Sunday as my team led worship together for the last time, we sang “Be Thou my Vision.” When we came to this final verse the only thing I could think about was how someday I will be in heaven with the bride of Christ and we will be singing together. As I looked out into the congregation I saw that there was a blind man sitting in the back of the church and I watched as he sang the lyrics to this song from his heart. As I watched I thought about how right now we cannot see heaven, we cannot see Christ, and we cannot see our future. All we can see is what God reveals to us and all we can do is ask God to be our eyes and lead us where he wants us to go. When I saw the blind man singing the last line of this verse I broke down. I realized that even though that man could not physically see, that through Christ one day in heaven he would. In heaven all of the pain and brokenness will be gone and Christ will be our satisfaction and peace. But until that day we have to trust God to be our vision, wisdom, truth, treasure, and King.

Still be my Vision oh Ruler of all…