How Firm A Foundation

There just lacks a certain quality from so much of today's music, but that was the whole message of songs years ago. The writers often had personally gone through (or at least knew someone who had) many of the lessons and experiences they wrote about - that's why they wrote.

It is a family habit to, each morning (except for Sunday) right after breakfast, read the devotional for that day from the current "Our Daily Bread" booklet. At the end of each devotional, there is always a little thought or poem that summarizes the lesson. Today, the poem was a line from the great old hymn "How Firm A Foundation".


"When thru fi'ry trials, thy pathway shall lie, My Grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

Today was my turn to read the devotional out loud, and when I got to that little poem, it was all I could do to keep my voice from cracking. The hymn is extremely stirring and rich in meaning, but this particular section never fails to move me to tears. Even as I typed it just now.
How many times throughout the eons past, were men and women, children and old people, made heroes because of their willingness to go (literally) through the Refiner's fire? Heroes...

Did I say heroes?

Their names are not even known now. Many of them were only a face, or a number, even to the ones who sent them through the fires. Yet the reason they are heroes is not because men remember them - but because "their names [are] written in the Lamb's book of Life", and because they willingly submitted to His fashioning, purifying hand.

Many, many, times I have wondered if I will face this fire. The time is coming when it will no longer be 'safe' to say, "I believe Jesus" anywhere.
Will I flinch? Or will I go out singing, as so many of them did?

Oh how firm a Foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid on your faith in His excellent Word!


~
For those of you who may not be familiar with this great old hymn, I searched YouTube and found a video that, even though this version does not perhaps exhibit the power and potency of the music as it could, at least conveys the spiritual depth and meaning.



Soli Deo Gloria

Kyrie