Lead me to the cross,
If the way Thou choosest
Lead to pain and loss,
Let the compensation
Daily, hourly, be
Shadowless communion,
Blessed Lord, with Thee.
Give, Lord, more of heaven.
Let the spirit praise Thee,
Though the heart be riven;
If sweet earthly ties, Lord,
Break at Thy decree,
Let the tie that binds us,
Closer, sweeter, be.
Cheer it with Thy smile;
Be Thou my companion
Through earth's little while;
Selfless may I live, Lord,
By Thy grace to be
Just a cleansed channel
For Thy life through me.
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Cupertino, CA, United States
Great song. Beautiful
Culumbus, Ohio, United States
The Lord gave me this hymn at the beginning of this year when I was confronted with the realities of the loss of my mother and my strained ties to my sister over the course of our lives. it ministered to me in a multifaceted way and allowed me to let go of the natural love I had in my life and supplied me with an all sufficient grace to be able to put the past behind me and moved forward in my walk with Christ and my pursuit of His will and purpose for me in my relationships to family, others and Himself. Sister Barber has met my need in her releasing such a gem of a hymn. Praise the Lord!
Anaheim, California, United States
This hymn is so beautiful! Praise The Lord for our sister M.E. Barber. This hymn reflects the life our sister lived on earth. Alone, the cross, broken earthly ties! She gave herself as a sacrifice to The "Magnet of her Soul." And He honored such consecration and used her in the line of His Economy to mentor br. Watchman Nee in China. This grain of wheat that fell into the earth has brought much fruit to The Lord. During her lifecourse on the earth she did not bear any physical children, did not accumulate a wealth of finances, but O what a great family she acquired, and how gloriously happy is she, one with The One she lived for "Through earth's little while".
Sydney, NSW, Australia
The path the writer of this hymn travelled has its goal in the fullest communion and fellowship with the Lord. This is not in a purported heavenly bliss of heightened "blessedness", but in a path of sorrow, pain and loss that has its model in the Lord Jesus' life on the earth in His earthly ministry. Neither earthly bliss or heavenly satisfaction as popularly sought is found here; it is rather to live because of Him, even as Christ Jesus lived because of the Father. The tenor of this hymn is not to offer comfort and solace that is temporal or self-oriented, rather than Christward. It is to, whilst suffering here on earth, bereft of every source of earthly comfort and satisfaction, and with no evident "heaven-sent" relief, to live unceasingly in His innermost presence in spirit, not defining the Christian life with respect to what our environment may present, but rather to let His presence, His being in our spirit to be the centrality and universality of who we are and what we are, even the focus in whom we press on whilst outwardly languishing in losses to the soul life, yet being renewed by Him within (2 Cor. 4:16). Thence we are in this process being produced as ministers of God's new covenant, to be just "a cleansed channel" for His life through us.