O Great God

It's been a tough couple of days.  Not because anything particularly nasty has happened; on the contrary, life has been pretty ordinary.  But, so often, I find it to be true that the deepest struggles strike in the ordinariness of the everyday.  For it's in the ordinary and unassuming times of just living life that the temptations of doubt, selfish desires and longings, and pride sneak in - almost unnoticed.  Before you know it, with the smallest thing, you're in a battle for your thoughts, your emotions, your soul.  Thank God that Jesus won the war, on that cross.  Thank God that he has given us his Spirit to work in and fight for us.

This is one of many reasons that I love worship music.  I love all kinds of music, but worship music (music we sing at church) is a precious and powerful gift from our loving, wise God.  He knows that we need to be constantly saturated with His words, to be reminded of his glory, and of his promises to us.  We need to be reminded of the gospel.

Tonight, this hit home as I played through a few older songs which we used to sing together at my church, but don't sing anymore.  In light of my recent (and regular) struggles with fighting sin and loving, trusting and rejoicing in Jesus, this one song was like a startling, hope-filled beacon of light across a stormy, turbulent sea.  It gave me a song to sing, and more than that, words to pray.  There's something incredibly beautiful about "prayer songs."  (I might have made that term up).  Songs which are basically prayers, and which we sing together as God's people.

This song is called, "O Great God."  It has an older, hymn-like style about it, and the lyrics are fantastic.  It's taken from Sovereign Grace's album, "Valley of Vision," named after a book of the same name, which is a collection of Puritan prayers.  The Puritans were guys who knew their God and his word, and who knew their own hearts.  Who had a way of articulating what we need to pray.

This is what I needed to pray today.  If you do too, sing and pray with me!

O great God of highest heaven
Occupy my lowly heart
Own it all and reign supreme
Conquer every rebel power
Let no vice or sin remain
That resists Your holy war
You have loved and purchased me
Make me Yours forevermore