Feverish Ways!!! - Wednesday Prayer

Wednesday night prayer service was peaceful - a resting place for all of us. Bro Mike read scriptural selections that made us pause and ponder God's control of all events. We prayed between his readings.

If his goal was to lead us to search out an inner place of peace and serenity -- then, at least for me, it worked.

It reminded me of that old hymn "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". Feeling an urge to re-visit the
words of this fine old hymn, I turned to it in our hymnal.

All of a sudden I didn't feel such peace and serenity -- the wording is wrong! It was so upsetting!

What an awful surprise!  The first lines in the hymnal are "Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways."


That's not the way it goes....It is supposed to say:   forgive our feverish ways...it fits the context so much better. The author was the Quaker (Friends) John Greenleaf Whittier, and he was also talking about pausing in our frantic busy-ness and feeling God's "still, small voice of calm."

Certainly our ways are foolish and we need to seek forgiveness for that. But he is not talking about our foolishness. He is talking about our feverish activity -- our greatly excitable and agitated motions -- our inability to sit still and hear God's voice. Our feverish spirit expresses our restlessness and impatience. Our frantic frenzies do not display God's calm and assuring peace that  "passeth all understanding."

That's what Bro Mike wanted to convey to us. He wanted us to stop -- to block out all the turmoil around us -- and feel God's peace and assurance. To be thoughtful, not impulsive and frantic.

 Don't just do something -- stand there!

Anyway, I looked at some more hymnals -- they all said "foolish." Then I was really agitated...I went back to Whittier's original poem -- it said "feverish.."  People, listen to me, read my lips....it is supposed to be "feverish.."  "FEVERISH..." I'm getting really upset now.

Good grief, is everyone in this world nuts?

I guess I should go back to prayer meeting.....maybe Bro Mike will do the same thing next week, because I think I need a second dose.

In the meantime, I will read Whittier's original lines...that should help...

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our feverish ways

Reclothe us in our rightful mind, in purer lives Thy service find

In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like those who heard, beside the Syrian Sea,

The gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them, without a word

Rise up and follow thee.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, til all our strivings cease

Take from our lives the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace

Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy calm

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind and fire

A still small voice of calm!

You know, I feel better now.

Those words: let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace..

Looks like I have a long way to go.





..