Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Teach me your way, Lord,
    that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
    that I may fear your name.
I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
    I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your love toward me;
    you have delivered me from the depths,
    from the realm of the dead.

• Psalm 86:11-13

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.  My Father will honor the one who serves me.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?  ‘Father, save me from this hour’?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”  The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

• John 12:23-29

“Father, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth
Glorify Thy name
Glorify Thy name
Glorify Thy name in all the earth”

• Donna Adkins, Glorify Thy Name

In a worship service recently, we sang a song that we had sung many times before.  This time we had a new pastor leading us.  There are three verses.  Replace the word “Father” with “Jesus” and you have the second verse.  Replace the word “Jesus” with “Spirit” and you have the third verse.  Our organist tries to get the congregation to swell as we go through the repeated “Glorify thy name” part.

It is not Fannie Crosby or Isaac Watts.  It does not tell a story.  It has four action words, love, worship, adore, and glorify.  It does not tell why we should do those things.  It just does them.

With something so simple, my mind is going far ahead of the lyrics, since the lyrics are so repetitive.  So, decided to physically focus myself, and in so doing, the little song has become one of my favorites, at least of this sub-genre.

During the first verse, we are singing to the Father.  I focus on some inanimate object near the front of the sanctuary.  The point is that I am not looking at a person.

In the second verse, I focus on the cross hanging from the rafters.  In the second Scripture above, Jesus laments that there is no alternative.  He states that He came to earth to die on the cross.  Then He glorifies the name of His Heavenly Father.  So, I spend that verse reminding myself that Jesus died on a cross for my sins.

Then, for quite some time, I focused on a variety of things in the sanctuary, but finally it dawned on me.  Look further up and over my head.  While the cross hangs from the first rafter, the next two rafters have ceiling fans.  When the ceiling fans are on, they produce wind and Jesus used the wind to illustrate the Spirit when He talked to Nicodemus.

I prefer the old hymns.  They tell a story.  They explain the “why.”  And when there is a song with few lyrics involved, I feel compelled to create my own worship within the song.

We should probably do that with a lot of songs these days.  But whatever we do, we need to focus on God and glorify His name.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.