My God and I: Three Voices
1st Voice: On Mothers’ Day when Angela announced MY GOD AND I (#601 in our songbooks), I thought, great, a Harding Song. As we began, I was overcome in tears and could not complete the first verse. I remembered the times I had heard the Harding Chorus sing that song. After singing the verses they would hum the tune while director Andy Richie recited: “The stars shine over the ocean; the stars shine over the seas. The stars look up to God, the stars look down on me. The stars may shine for a million years, a million years and a day, but God and I will live and love when the stars have passed away.” That song is much like Psalms 8 & 23. I believe those songs but emotionally I harken back to earlier times when life seemed simple and easy. Now it is difficult.
2nd Voice: Life is great when God takes the initiative; everything is OK. But there are times when his people must take the initiative as in Exodus 2:23-25. Enslaved in Egypt they groan and cry out for rescue. Their cry goes up to God. Hearing their groaning, God remembers his covenant. God saw the people and God knew. The story resumes at the burning bush (Holy Ground). Recalling his experience the LORD acts (Exodus 3:1-12). Israel’s history was changed when God’s people cried out to him. Many Psalms are laments when God’s people groan and cry out and they are heard (Psalms 94, 39 & 22).
3rd Voice: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:4-5). We traditionally locate that newness only “somewhere beyond the blue.” But the promise is fulfilled when the city of God comes down out of heaven to men. Many Psalms locate newness in life here and now as did Jesus in his ministry (Psalm 146). Newness comes to those (continued on back) (continued from front) who sang MY GOD AND I. Then chaos came and they cried out to God. In this third voice God promises to create newness for such people (Psalm 118). God, not us nor our idols, makes all things new (Psalm 115). There is political newness (Psalm 2), personal emotional newness (Psalm 40), and community newness (Psalm 126). “O Israel (and church) praise the LORD.
—Tom Yoakum