Blessed be your name

Earlier this week, a good friend of mine took me to the little Christian bookshop in the next village up from where I live, to choose a present for my youngest brother who is getting baptised this weekend. I love this little bookshop, which is run by volunteers from a local church, because it has a warm, welcoming feeling to go along with the great selection of Christian books, CDs and beautiful cards. As well as finding a gift for my brother, I came across a little book which I thought might be helpful - or at least encouraging - to someone else I care about. Before I pass it on, however, I wanted to read it through to be sure.

The book is called “Blessed by your name,” and is written by the two people who brought the Christian world the song by the same title in 2002 (Matt and Beth Redman). The strap-line beneath the title describes the purpose of both the book and the song: ‘worshipping God on the road marked with suffering‘. If you’re a Christian I’m about 98.7% sure you will know this song - or at least have heard it before. Okay so I made that percentage up, but you know what I mean!

If you don’t know the song, it’s well worth a listen. Before you commit to singing along though, maybe think through what the words actually mean because this isn’t your average worship song, simply about how great God is (which He is, don’t get me wrong). This song is about choosing to trust and worship God even when everything around you seems to be falling apart. It’s about consciously deciding to hold onto the greatness of God that you have known in the past even when life is dealing you one bad hand after another.

We had the song, Blessed be your name, at our wedding and, although we didn’t know back then that my condition was going to worsen before it (hopefully) improves, we knew we had to mean the words we were singing; they fitted in nicely with the wedding vows, if you think about it. In the vows we took, we promised to love each other in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer. This song is pretty much saying the same thing to God, and is just as huge a statement or a promise to make as those wedding vows we consider so seriously.

This book by the Redmans is only 105 pages long which makes it less overwhelming for me to attempt to read the whole way through but already, even from the first 10 pages, I can tell it’s going to be a book full of things which inspire and/or challenge me, just as the song does. I wanted to share one or two points I have already come across within these early pages because I think they are interesting and potentially powerful images. The first is about motion sickness, something which struck a particular chord with me because I used to suffer terribly with it as a child and am still prone to it now and I know it affects at least one of my closest friends too!

“Motion sickness when you travel in a car is caused by your senses contradicting each other. Say, for example, you choose to read a book as you travel. The balance sensors in your ears tell you that you’re moving quickly - yet your eyes report that you’re not. It’s a case of conflicting senses. One way to cure the sickness is to add more evidence to what you know to be correct. For example, rolling down the window and sticking your hand out of a fast-moving car into the air will help confirm to your brain that you are indeed in motion.

The same is true of the spiritual life. There may come seasons of pain when we desperately try to cling on to what we know to be true about God, and yet we are utterly confused by a hardship we’re experiencing. Our knowledge of Scripture tells us that God is eternally good; yet at the same time a very tough life situation seems to be screaming the complete opposite at us. Before long, we find ourselves in a case of spiritual motion sickness - living in the tension of what we think we know to be true, and the deep pain that seems to contradict it.”

Sorry, that is a long quotation from the book but my attempts at paraphrasing it would probably have ended up much longer! The next paragraph offers a spiritual parallel to sticking your hand out of the window of the car; the way to gather more evidence of the God you know to be real is to reinforce your knowledge and understanding of Him by opening up your Bible and absorbing the truths of His faithfulness from there. The encouragement that can be found in the lives of others who have chosen to trust Him goes a long way to redressing the balance of those conflicting senses within you. Reading about how God comes to the rescue of those who need Him, even at the last possible minute, and how He comforts those who are suffering, even in the deepest pain, can build up enough faith in us that we are able to worship Him even through the uncertainty, and even the pain, of the situation we find ourselves in.

A little later in the first chapter of this little book, the writers refer to the moon; we believe it is there, even when all we can see is a tiny fraction of it shining in the sky, because we have seen full moons on other nights throughout our life. We know it is whole even if we’ve not seen it so for months on end. The same must be true of our faith and trust in God if we are to get through the dark nights this life can throw at us -the dark nights of pain, illness, loss, grief, betrayal and the list goes on. Some nights may even pass without a single glimpse of the moon but we know it is still there, simply by head knowledge. “Blessed be your name” - both book and song - urge us to keep holding on and worshipping God somehow - even if we are clinging on by our fingertips to the knowledge or to the memory of God’s faithfulness in our own lives.

The more I see of life and of pain - in the lives of those I love, those I have simply heard of and my own life at times - the more I understand the position of those who just cannot bring themselves to trust or praise God. However, the more I see of God and His love and grace - also in the lives of those I love, those I have simply heard of and my own life so often - the more I choose to worship Him, trust Him and hold onto Him until one day it will all make sense, when we see Him face to face. I pray that the same will be true for you.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name.

By Matt Redman, 2002.