Blessed Be Your Name

Blessed Be Your Name In the land that is plentiful Where Your streams of abundance flow Blessed be Your nameBlessed Be Your name When I'...

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your nameBlessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your nameEvery blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will sayBlessed 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 nameWhen 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 nameEvery blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will sayBlessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameBlessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameYou give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
This is a song that i have sang so many times that i could very easily sing it all the way through without ever seeing the words.. truthfully it is one of my favorites, but at this point in my life it is also something that haunts me... the words to this song have seemed to be running through my head like a hamster on a wheel with never ending energy.. Why? that is what this will be about..
The other night at church we sang this song. There was nothing unusual about it. We hadn't sang it in a while so I was glad that when I saw it was on the play list, but it was nothing tremendously out of the ordinary... and as we began to sing God really started to soften my heart and allow my mind to focus for what seemed like the first time in weeks... when we came to the part of the song that says "there is pain in the offering" I began to weep uncontrollably as though I had just won a beauty pageant. I fell to my knees and for the first time in months just cried out to God... I just sat there on the floor weeping... there was 75 people in that room and I felt as though I was completely alone with God... it felt like he was showing me something from his eyes.. I began to cry even harder... I finally begin to calm down and we come to the lyrics that say over and over again "you give and take away". I begin to start all over again... I felt like I was a kid in Toys r us who was just told that I couldn't have the toy that I wanted. but more that than that I felt freedom.


The part of my this song that plays over and over again like a CD that is skipping and that nobody will turn off is "there is pain in the offering". We are such a selfish people... we think that being a follower of Christ is something that wont lead us into pain... the truth of the matter is that our life is not our own.. Our life is to be the offering. We offer ourselves to God. Not for any other reason except that He loves us... we give ourselves back to the creator. We tell God here I am use me in whatever way that you see fit... We OFFER ourselves to the God that created everything. This is what we are told. And this is all true. The part that seems to be strategically left out is the pain... That we are going hurt, we will be confused, we will feel as though we have nothing left, we will from time to time be so attacked by the enemy that we will feel as though our arms are tied behind our back and that we are being punched in the gut over and over again helpless to do anything about it.. These are the facts of our walk. Our Christian walk is not a trot through the Yellow Stone, but more like a treacherous climb up ..Mt. Everest at the worst possible time of the year. The only promise that we are given is that if we keep climbing we will reach the promise land. We'll get to stand before God in all His Glory. and hear I love you.
I don't mean for this to sound as though it is all bad or that my walk with Christ is nothing more than hell on earth. That is not the case. Waking up everyday and walking with the prince of peace is a beautiful thing. I know that everything God does is for my good. I know that God loves me, and for me that is enough, but from time to time there is hurt.. It's a good hurt though. It's a hurt where you know that God is preparing me for something... I remember when I was in 8th grade I was 5"2... I was the shortest guy in my class when I left for the summer... over the summer break my legs hurt every night before I would go to bed. My parents finally took me to the doctor for him to tell us that I was experiencing growing pains and that my legs were going through an abnormally large growth spurt. Well when he said that I was actually glad for the pain every night. I would actually go to my dad and say "how do you feel that you are standing next to some one who is at this moment growing?" cheesy I know. When I went back to school that fall I was 5'11. I was thrilled.

Now when I am hurting and I am experiencing the pain part of the offering I can say to you how does it feel to read this from a person who is at this moment growing? Cheesy I know, but very true.

God loves me. He created me to love me. His love comes in different ways from time to time, but it is there. We don't have to wait to get to heaven before we get our blessings. God gives us a little taste every day. We just fail to see it. The pain in my offering is one of the ways I get a little taste.

My addicition doesnt define me. Its a disease that I live with, but i will always be more than just an addiction. I fight every day to put the pieces back together. Thank you for taking part in my journey. You are not alone!

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