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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I want to start by thanking all who have reached out to remind me that you’ve set an alarm on your phone each day to lift me and our upcoming District Conference in prayer. I can’t begin to tell you how much that means to me.
Regarding the District Conference, some of my meditations will begin to prepare us for the format of worship both Friday evening and during the business Saturday. Some of the most meaningful services I’ve attended had a format of Scripture, song, meditation and prayer that was repeated in that sequence for the duration of the worship.
This meditation began with a passage from Ephesians. The song that comes to mind when I read this passage is a lifelong favorite hymn titled, “The Love of God.” I will share the lyrics and a link to listen to this song at the end of this meditation.
The first two verses and chorus were written by Frederick M. Lehman, a German immigrant and California businessman who lost everything and ended up packing lemons and oranges in wooden crates to earn a meager living.
One night, after attending a revival service where he’d heard a sermon on the love of God, Lehman was so moved that he could hardly sleep. The following day at the warehouse, he took a pencil stub and scribbled the words as they came to him on pieces of broken crate. He went home that evening and sat at the piano until he had a melody to go with it. He desperately tried coming up with a third verse, but the words just wouldn’t come.
It was then he remembered a poem someone had given him. He found the poem written on a card he’d used as a bookmark.
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Tho stretched from sky to sky.
These words were written at the bottom of the card.
“These words were found written on a cell wall in a prison some 200 years ago. It is not known why the prisoner was incarcerated; neither is it known if the words were original or if he had heard them somewhere and had decided to put them in a place where he could be reminded of the greatness of God’s love - whatever the circumstances, he wrote them on the wall of his prison cell. In due time, he died and the men who had the job of repainting his cell were impressed by the words. Before their paint brushes had obliterated them, one of the men jotted them down and thus they were preserved.”
Lehman sat at the piano again, singing his freshly-penned words and adding that poem as the last stanza. It fit perfectly with his melody. Years later, hymn historian Alfred B. Smith discovered that the original writer of that third stanza was Meir Ben Issac Nehoria, a Jewish Rabbi, who wrote those words in Hebrew nearly 1000 years earlier. To think, when we join our voices together in this song, or alone in our homes or offices, or cars, we are literally joining with voices across the annals of time and proclaiming the love of God.
Prayer: Oh God, let us not speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love. Let us not prophesy, and know all mysteries and knowledge, and have faith to move mountains, yet have not love. Let us not give our possessions to the poor and become martyrs, but not have love. May we be patient and kind, not jealous and arrogant. Let us rejoice with the truth, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. Even from our varied places of firm convictions and theological understandings, let us love in such a manner that all who witness our interactions can’t help but also experience the love of God.
But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. May it be so, Oh Lord. May it be so.
In Kingdom Partnership.
Regina Cyzick Harlow
District Conference moderator
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