You give and take away

During the recent church camp, the song "Blessed be Your Name" by Matt Redman was sang by the worship team on quite a few sessions. I found it really meaningful and challenging for one who really sings it with full conviction. The lyrics goes something like this...

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name ...

... You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Pastor Dennis shared with the congregation that this song was written when Redman's wife had a miscarriage. And yet, despite the lost of his child, he was able to pen the lyrics "You give and take away, my heart will choose to say, blessed be Your name".

Wow... Maybe its really at such a pinnacle of surrendering to the Lord that He will in return bring restoration to man.

There have been a few occasions when my heart was unable to say "blessed be Your name" when He "gives and take away" things that meant a lot to me. Nonetheless, I think this year has really been a great learning curve for me in proclaiming His name when things that were so "close", "near", or "almost" were taken away.

I suppose the race with God - be it in the shores or depths of our lives - can go either way; one may choose to give up his ideals and dreams so that the "giving and taking away" will not seem so harsh, or he will continue to pursue the things that he knew to some extent might "be taken away" in due time, not that he wants to "test" God, but he really wants to find out the answer for himself, to banish away the doubts if things said were from the rationalization of his mind, or truly from God's voice.