A Moment With Mullins

In November of 1999 the world of a dear friend and brother in Christ from FUMC-K came crashing down around him.  I will not tell that story here, for it is not my story to tell.  Suffice it to say that his life and the life of everyone close to him changed forever, and for many of us it was very hard to deal with.  Many of us missed warning signs that could have helped the situation, and people were hurt. I was already planning to leave FUMC-K in January of 2000; this event postponed my departure by two months.  In the midst of that turmoil I found much peace in the words of the great Rich Mullins (pictured) song Sometimes By Step (street name O God You Are My God).  It was a song we sang often at youth; or at least the chorus was sung often:

O God You are my God and I will ever praise You

O God You are my God and I will ever praise You

I will seek You in the morning,

and I will learn to walk in your way

and step by step You'll lead me

and I will follow You all of my days

Step by step.  So often we want to move in leaps and bounds in our walk with God, and we forget that the path is narrow and the road is hard.  This chorus has always been a prayer for me, and we sang it with youth at every stop since Springfield Friends Meeting.  We seek God.  We learn to walk- in baby steps so much of the time.  And it is when we allow God to lead, and we follow, that we actually make progress.  Step by step.

As moving as that chorus is, it is the verses to the song that have so often reminded me that we all struggle with faithfulness and righteousness on this side of heaven.  From the first time I heard Rich playing the song on his hammer dulcimer while it was being written at Guilford College in 1990, there was something almost haunting about it.  The lyrics take you on a journey, drawing you close to God and then reminding you just how tough the journey is as we seek to truly be Christ-followers.  Read this amazing bit of poetry, and find yourself in the journey:

Sometimes the night was beautiful

Sometimes the sky was so far away

Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close

You could touch it but your heart would break

Sometimes the morning came too soon

Sometimes the day could be so hot

There was so much work left to do

But so much You'd already done

Sometimes I think of Abraham

How one star he saw had been lit for me

He was a stranger in this land

And I am that, no less than he

And on this road to righteousness

Sometimes the climb can be so steep

I may falter in my steps

But never beyond Your reach

That last line- "I may falter in my steps but never beyond your reach"- carried me through that November and my last few months in Kissimmee.  The reminder that no matter how far we fall in our spiritual journey we are never out of God's hands also helped me survive my own "crash" in 2007.  The reminder that there is much work left to do- in our own hearts and minds as well as in the world we live in- is also a reminder that we cannot do it alone.  We need Jesus.  As Rich once said, "God is right.  The rest of us are guessing."

I survived (and my family survived) my world collapsing because we never forgot that the grace of God is present in our lives no matter what we might have done.  I am not defined by my sin; I am defined by Jesus.  I hope my friend has discovered this truth as well.  We often think of praising God from the mountain tops.  Sometimes we must praise Him from the deepest valley.  And when we are at that place, there is no better refrain than this:  "O God, You are my God and I will EVER praise You..."

Because of Jesus,