In his 90 years, Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) pastored in several Ohio area congregations, edited fifty song books and wrote more than 2000 hymns — among them are “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” (published in 756 hymnals) and “Glory To His Name” (appearing in 959 hymnals). It seems he felt right at home with the Lord, and from that happy place he sent a number of wonderful songs off to work. Please give this one a sing along listen and come back for a chat on what it means to “be at home”.
“This is your home”
I was in the final months of a four year Christian leadership training adventure and had just moved to a different campus for a sort of “final polishing”. At orientation the program director said the place was our home. At that point I did not feel that way, but gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked myself what I would need to make this place count as “home”. What came to my mind surprised me. I thought, “Well, home is where there is no curfew, no set bedtime.” (Did I mention this was a training adventure?) Practically the next words out of that leader’s mouth were, “No more curfew. If you haven’t figured out how to manage that by now, that’s on you.” The next thing my mind gave me was the line from the song “♪♫ Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home … ♪♫”. By the rule I had just decreed, I was home. Okay, then.
Same campus, several weeks later it was “work time” for us all. I was delighted with the job I had been given. Rather than working with a shovel like several others, I got to sit alone and peaceful, with a nice view out the window, typing term papers for others in the program. Turned out membership — AND ability to type had its privileges. One particular day, the only cloud over my head was a responsibility I had been given to get a movie set up for all of us for the evening.
If there is anything I hate, it is being given a responsibility without the authority to do it. That was the case here. I had not been given the ability to access the movie equipment which I knew was locked up in the dark and currently untended A/V office. Just instructions to “figure it out”. As I pecked away that day, a thought flashed across my mind to call the A/V office. I responded, “that’s a good idea”. Immediately another thought crossed my mind. “DO IT RIGHT NOW.” The sense of urgency surprised me, but I walked right over to the phone and called the A/V office. A fellow there answered the phone. I made my request. He set me up with what I needed. Then he commented, “Sure was good timing on your call. I had just stopped in for about two minutes. I’m gone the rest of the day, and no one else could have helped you with this.”
Two incidents that illustrated that I really was “home”, but in ways that were new to me. I found myself living where thoughts might occur to me that were so “right place, right time” that I knew something was … well … up. It was as if someone were tracking what I needed and would tell me how to get it. I wondered if this was what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 12. Could it be? I liked it. It was not the physical location or the kind of dwelling, or my clothes in the closet that made me feel at home. It was a very real sense that I had been invited into a working, loving relationship that could, and would, travel with me — that I belonged.
I was home. I was home.
♪♫ Jesus so sweetly abides within ♪♫
This is a quick song, and lyrics can fly right on past if we don’t grab them. “Jesus so sweetly abides within” — what a picture! Colossians 2 says something like it — “Christ in you, the hope of glory”, and THAT is a powerful way to say it. “Jesus so sweetly abides within” — that’s … beautiful. We want to linger there, and enjoy the peace, the conversation, the intimacy. To enjoy ideas that that occur to us at just the right moment. “Peace I leave with you.” Life is good. Home.
But the song moves fast. Before we can get too comfortable with all that personal attention from our dear savior, the next line seems to jump up right in front of us and wreck the reverie: “There at the cross …”. Suddenly and sharply the picture and the conversation lunge in another direction, taking us to our Lord at the most awful place and time. Oh, but we are included in this picture, too. “Where he took my sins.”
Where he took my sins. What can I say? I can hardly bring my eyes up off my feet and look at him.
Then, once again, before there is any time to settle in and wallow, the lyrics lunge to yet another line of thinking. “GLORY TO HIS NAME!” What a magnificent roller coaster. In a few short lines set to an upbeat melody we are treated to a comb blessed by the Lord to run through our minds, straightening out tangles of unworthiness and loneliness in a way that lets the joy and light prevail. He made it so wherever we are, whatever we are doing, the Lord has invited us to live with him sweetly dwelling within. He’s made us his home. With Christ in us, and we in him … we are home.
Going home to be with the Lord
It’s been said, “Ultimately, home is less of a place and more of a feeling of alignment.”
I know that expression “going home to be with the Lord” is usually a euphemism (a “softer way of saying something”) meaning that a person has died. And, as with so many other expressions, that particular meaning might be so ingrained that I risk being misunderstood if I try to put the saying to another purpose. Maybe what I’m about to say cannot possibly fly.
But it seems that when our thoughts get out of whack, and we decide we would rather wallow awhile in some mud or spend one more night with the frogs, that we are NOT home. Instead we are “out and about” or as Crocadile Dundee said, “on walkabout”. When we come back to our right minds — when we step away from the bogs and the frogs — and reconnect with our friend, our savior, and let him talk … isn’t that a here-and-now move to “go home to be with the Lord”?
I think we all have days when we might “go home and be with the Lord” in THIS sense a half dozen times before breakfast. On our way to actually “going home to be with the Lord” in that “last breath” way, I’d like to think of “being at home with the Lord” as a relationship he’s invited us to enjoy every minute of every day. Again and always. How about it?
When I think of it that way, I want to say “glory to his name!”
God bless you LOTS!
–Dale R.
Download this songsheet from “The Music Box”
LYRICS – Glory To His Name
Text: Elisha A. Hoffman (1878)
Tune: John H. Stockton (1813-1877)
1. I am so wondrously saved from sin,
Jesus so sweetly abides within,
There at the cross where he took my sins;
Glory to His name!
Chorus:
Glory to His name,
Glory to His name;
There to my heart was the blood applied;
Glory to His name!
2. Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin,
I am so glad I accepted him.
Jesus has saved me and lives within;
Glory to his name!
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— Dale R.