Funny though, as I spoke of it, and remembered it, I was actually thinking of another. Thank goodness for Google:
We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.
Yes, in Thy Name, O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear Name, all other names above;
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.
We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”
We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise;
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.
"... Through gates of pearly splendor." No matter which of these two wonderful hymns (and they make great topical bookends), whenever I hear Finlandia I think of Jim Elliott.
Does anyone still remember or still talk of the Curaray River? Of Palm Beach? Of the five that died there?
"Through Gates of Splendor was nearly required reading in my Christian experience. But it wasn't a waste. It introduced me to Jim Elliott and to Elisabeth Elliott (whose writings I commend to the reader as one of the two best contemporary Christian authors in my opinion) and the other 4 members of "Operation: Auca".
I saturated myself for a time in the writing around this event, known in my day as the Auca Massacre. Their writings, especially those of Jim Elliott moved me, made me aware of a deep longing to be God's man:
He makes] His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot kep to gain what he cannot lose.
O God, save me from a life of barrenness, following a formal pattern of ethics, and give instead that vital contact of soul with Thy divine life that fruit may be produced, and Life-abundant living-may be known again as the final proof for Christ’s message and work.
I often wonder what became of the man that I wanted to be or thought I would become. I think there is something that happens, though, to those of us who live longer lives. We look for inspiriation to these men of God who burned out quickly. We look at ourselves, who struggle and feel we have no testimony, no punch to our lives as God's men. It seems we aren't doing the job.
But that is, I believe, just the romanticism of what happened to those 4 men. It wasn't romantic to them as spears were shoved into them. They were thrust violently into Jesus' presence. Did it seem for a moment, did they in that moment share the sense of fruitlessness that I sometimes (often..) feel?
Or were they that qualitatively different from me?
In a way yes. They rooted out before God the things that held them back. I still falter on the airplane seat simply saying, "Jesus loves you." Not always, but sometimes.
God, spare ME from a life of uselessness. But just as much, spare me from a life wasted wishing I were someone else, in someone elses' discipleship walk.
D
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