Monday Morning Memo: Yielded and Still

Yes, I’m one of those people.  I love the newer choruses and songs we sing on Sunday morning.  I love how they speak to me and lead me into the worship of my Savior.

But, I also love the old hymns.  I love the words and the harmonizing sounds as we lift our voices in praise.   I love how words that were written many, many years ago can still speak to me.  I also love to read the stories behind the words because many of them have a powerful effect on me. 

One of the hymns that speaks to me is “Have Thine Own Way, Lord”.  The words are:

Have Thine own way, Lord 

Have Thine own way. 

Thou art the Potter
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me 

After thy will 

While I am waiting 

Yielded and still. 

If you google the title of this hymn…you will find the story of why it was written in 1902: 

“In 1902, Adelaide A. Pollard, a hymn writer, was hoping to go to Africa as a missionary but found herself unable to raise the needed funds to make the journey. Greatly discouraged, she attended a prayer service one evening and as she sat there, she overheard an elderly woman say, "It really doesn't matter what you do with us, Lord, just have your own way with our lives." The elderly woman inspired Pollard and she contemplated the story of the potter from Jeremiah 18:3 and, upon her return home that evening, wrote all four stanzas before retiring for the night.” 

What powerful words the elderly woman shared that night. But, if I’m honest, reading those words is much easier than living them…because it is sometimes hard for me to allow God to have complete control of my life. I often think I know best and so I find myself trying to change using my own power and my own strength and I fall flat on my face. But in reading the words to this song recently, I had what you might call an AH-HA moment. Because, even though I have sung this hymn many times, I realized it doesn’t say that the Lord should mold me and make me while I’m running around trying to change on my own. He is to mold me and make me...while I wait, yield and am still. OUCH. MY responsibility is to yield; HIS responsibility is to do the work in me. MY responsibility is to get to the place where I can honestly say it really doesn’t matter what He does with my life; He can have complete control to change me anyway He sees fit...while I wait, yield and am still. 

Are you feeling tired, frustrated and burned out because you are trying to change on your own? Maybe today you just need to wait, yield and be still and let HIM do the work. I think you just might be amazed as to what HE can accomplish when HE has complete control! 

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

and in His word I put my hope.”

Psalm 130:5