Blessed Be Your Name
Job 1:20-21 (Amplified Bible)
20 Then Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head [in mourning for the children], and he fell to the ground and worshiped [God]. 21 He said,
“Naked (without possessions) I came [into this world] from my mother’s womb,
And naked I will return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
[This is the 4th devotion in a series of twelve songs that have impacted us during our grief journey]
Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be Your name
Matt Redman penned these lyrics with his wife following the attacks on September 11, 2001. He wrote about the lack of songs available at the time for people dealing with grief and loss.
“Where were the musical poets and prophets to help the people of God find a voice in worship at this tragic time? The truth was, in most places we visited (or led worship in), there was a distinct lack of songs appropriate for this time…when it came to expressions of pain and lament, we had very little vocabulary to give voice to our heart cries.”1
Finding the right vocabulary for expressing our lament is an essential part of processing our pain. After the loss of our son, we often felt a level of grief beyond words. Finding the right words helps to lift some of the weight of the pain from our hearts. Part of this process was writing in journals as a way of finding an outlet for our deep groans. Our words did not always make sense in the beginning but they were like the first drops of rain prior to a spring thunderstorm.
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
The lyrics to this song first hit me when we were in the process of adopting our second child. There was a point when we thought the process would need to stop because of the financial hardship of the journey. The thought of letting go of the dreams we had for our daughter was too much to bear. I remember that song playing in church and struggling to fight back the emotions that came with the idea of letting go. In the following days, God would provide for us and we would be blessed with our daughter. Little did we know that years later we would have to face letting go again and this time there would be no way to escape it. It is easy to praise when you are given blessings and life is good. The real challenge to your faith is when those blessings are taken away. You can find that in the life of Job. In Job 1:21. Job chooses to praise the Lord even in his grief. Each day as I fight this battle, I embrace the lyrics that say that, “My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be Your name”.
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
1 Matt and Beth Redman, “Blessed Be Your Name: You Give and Take Away, My Heart Will Choose to Say,” (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2008), 34.
