Sunday, February 19, 2012

"Grace Shall Be As Your Day"

This is a line from a mormon pioneer hymn that's way popular in our church.  The full hymn goes:


Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
’Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell—
All is well! All is well!


There are plenty of other verses that are just as inspiring but I started to think about the words in this hymn especially the fourth line.  The background of this hymn is that it was sort of the motivating anthem that the mormon pioneers sang as they traveled across country over mountainous and wintery terrain with wagons/handcarts.  The rule was if anyone started singing it, you had to join in.  It's a beautiful song.  I guess because I've sung it so much in church it's easy for me to go on auto pilot and not really think about the words.  Is this song beautiful sure, but in my mind it was always a pioneer song singing about physical pioneer- type things that happened in the past.  Now sure, I could see applying the general concept to modern day life too-I mean, life is hard no matter when you live it's kind of the point.  For some reason though, this line stuck out to me the other day as I thought about this hymn.  I had never given this line any attention before and frankly didn't know what it was referring to-all the other lines were far more obvious to me.


Grace shall be as your day.  Now it's not a stretch to believe in the grace of God if you're a Christian.  After we do our part as much as we can, only through the Grace of God are we saved, and it is grace cause technically we can never save ourselves-will never be perfect.  And this line is saying that no matter when or where you live-just as God helped and lifted up the saints in their trials across the plains (and there are miraculous stories) He will help us whereever and whenever we are-there's no difference.  Not only that, but how different are our needs from day to day?  One day I may be feeling great and ontop of the world, the next I could be a hormonal mess in a minor panic worried about some little thing.  It doesn't matter though, however little or much grace I need that day He will give it to me.  The grace never will run out-there will always be enough that we need.  Now THAT is comforting.

1 comment:

  1. love the post! it is funny how hymns we've heard a million times can hit us in new ways depending on what we're facing! you rock, whit!

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