"May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart."
Tune: OLIVET
“I’m just give out,” my mama would say as she lowered
herself onto the rocking chair in the den. Bad English, perfect expression.
There are indeed days when we are so droopy we doubt that we can actually go
on; there are nights we fall into bed and wonder if we can get up and go again
the next day simply because we are exhausted. We have overdone it, overextended
ourselves.
“Because we have been given this work by the mercy of God,
we do not lose heart,” says Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:1. It is not the being worn
down physically that I fear: it is being worn out in my spirit. Losing heart in
the midst of carrying out our various life-duties will cause us to implode.
I’ve never sung this hymnline and not whispered a “yes, Lord”
under my breath! I know the dispensing of God’s grace is my only hope for not
losing the wherewithal to go on. In order to do all the things necessary to
survive as a human being in the 21st Century AND share in the work
of my church and other ministering organizations, I simply must rely on the richness
of the grace of God, believing that he has plenty enough to keep me going.
We all probably need to slow down more than we do. We tend
to fill every minute with some activity. We sometimes ‘give out’ more than we ‘take
in.’ We expect to be refueled by God’s grace while we’re on the run… sort of
like planes are refueled in flight. Perhaps we need to land for a while and enjoy
the re-infusion of grace in our lives, calmly accepting that provision,
reflecting on its affect before we rush off to accomplish some other looming
task.
When the fuel tank on my Rav-4 nears the E, I could
save 7.4 minutes if I didn’t have to pull into the Shell station. But it doesn’t
work that way. Neither does our spiritual life. We have to take time out to let
our fainting heart be energized once again by the amazing grace… the grace that
can be imparted only from the reservoir of God.
Hear an A Cappella
Singing of This Hymn
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