When the Saints

For the past 2 weeks as I've been walking around Missoula, I've found myself singing and praying the lyrics to one song. It's a very self-convicting song, and a profound cry to Christ for the meaning of my life, as I imagine it to be for the life of any of His saints.

Please, read these lyrics, and pray on them... ask the Holy Spirit of God to speak to your heart, to soften it, and then reflect on what you want YOUR life to be like. Do you truly want to march behind Christ with the long host of saints stretching back to the beginning, knowing that to do so is to die to yourself and this world and follow the Man of Sorrows? Could you, living as you are today, bear to meet the gaze of His melancholy eyes, or to stand in the company of Paul, Silas, John, Peter, Patrick, Moses, Zechariah, Isaiah, or Stephen?

“When the Saints” by Sara Groves

Lord I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know
It's more than I can handle,
But your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones and I can't let it go,
And when I'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left un-fought...

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard,
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.

Lord it's all that I can't carry and cannot leave behind
It often overwhelms me,
But when I think of all who've gone before and lived the faithful life
Their courage compels me;
And when I'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left un-fought...

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard,
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars;
I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaoh's court,
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord!
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad,
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul.
I see the young missionary and the angry spear,
I see his family returning with no trace of fear.
I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights,
I see the sisters standing by the dying man's side.
I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor,
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down that door.
I see the man of sorrows and His long troubled road,
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load.

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of themI want to be one of them.

I don't vaunt my life, for I am no less than Paul the chiefest of sinners... yet as heartbreaking as it would be to look up into the eyes of Christ and weep at all my failures to LIVE His gospel in a world crying out for hope, I can no more hold back my tears nor His Word in the face of the evil all around me. No matter the cost in my fears and comforts, strongholds and sins, I will follow my King and march to the daily battle among the flying banners of His host. Better to die a pauper in this world yet knowing that my race has been well run and that across the Jordan I will fall into the arms of not only my Father, but the many friends whose lives He transformed even in the smallest part by my willingness to let His love work through me. Brothers and sisters, let us never forget that we live in a world at war- we all fight whether we want to or not.

The question we must ask ourselves each day is 'whose Kingdom do I serve?' If we all lived like the bygone saints we admire, the world would be without excuse in rejecting or denying Christ. If only we who know the Truth choose to live it....