Be My Vision, Lord!

There is an old Irish hymn, “ Be Thou My Vision“, written in the 8th century. The author is anonymous, but in the One Year Book of Hymns for June 10th, it says,

"The word vision is used to indicate not only what we focus on but also what we strive for. As we strive for a goal, we gain a long-range perspective that helps us see today’s disappointments as trivial when compared with the heavenly vision.”

In other words, when God is our Vision, we see Him in everything that happens in our lives and we are content. The Psalmist expresses his thoughts this way:

“I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; from You alone comes the good I enjoy…Lord, You are my allotted portion and my cup; You maintain my boundaries: the lines fall for me in pleasant places; I am well content with my inheritance…You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.” Psa. 16:2, 5, 6, 11 REB

Here I have paraphrased some of the thoughts expressed in the hymn. ‘Be my vision, Lord. Nothing else matters to me but You…You are my best thought day or night—Your presence is my light…Be my wisdom, Lord. You are my true word…You are living in me and I in You…Be my battle shield…my dignity and my delight, my soul’s shelter…I don’t desire riches or man’s empty praise; You are my inheritance… always first in my heart…my treasure. High King of heaven, You are my victory…Heart of my own heart, whatever happens, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

’This Vision is—seeing that the object of His grace is not only our happiness but our holiness so that we would carry out His purposes in the world around us. It is recognizing the priestly heart He’s given us—a sympathetic heart in which we are motivated to please and honor Him in the way we live and respond to life’s circumstances so that others will want to know and come to enjoy Him too. It is also recognizing that “apart from Me you can do nothing”—He lives IN US so we have His power to do the work He’s asked us to do. We are utterly dependent on Him and His promise is, “He who abides in Me bears much fruit.” He makes it happen!

When He is our Vision, Mark 12:30 becomes a reality: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” NIV As Andrew Murray says in ‘God’s Best Secrets’,

“He needs us wholly for Himself. Our love, our prayers, our consecration, our trust, our obedience—in all these there must be an unreserved surrender to God’s will and service.

‘With all your heart’—with its longings, with its affections, with its attachments, with all its desires.

‘With all your soul’—with its vital powers and the will as a royal master of the soul.

‘With all your mind’—its faculties of thought, of knowledge, of reasoning, and its powers of memory and imagination.

‘With all your strength’—this is nothing less than the sacrifice of everything and the putting forth of our utmost endeavors. All for God, for God alone, and our one desire must be to love and serve Him perfectly.”

What a wonderful God it is who has such a right to expect so much from us!...Is He not indeed worthy, ten thousand times worthy, that all that is within us shall love and honor Him with all our strength and all our heart?”

I think of the wonderful promise in 1 Thessalonians 5:22-24TLB “May the God of peace himself make you entirely pure and devoted to God; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept strong and blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again. God, who called you to become his child, will do all this for you, just as he promised.”

As we enter a new year may we know more fully what it means to experience Him as our Vision!