Trials: “I Asked The Lord”

Some time back Parkside Church Senior Pastor Alistair Begg linked to the above titled hymn in his weekly blog. I am grateful it is shared with a larger audience. When first introduced to me many years ago it immediately became one of my favorite hymns. After saying that and after reading/listening to the lyrics you will undoubtedly conclude that I am a sad case. To that I confess. But for those for whom it is deeply biographical, there will be great understanding and appreciation. I pray that would be true for the one reading this now.

The author, John Newton, is most famous for “Amazing Grace,” a hymn that is universally recognized, even by non-Christians, as one of the greatest hymns of the faith. Newton would confess after his remarkable conversion that “Sovereign grace has power alone to subdue a heart of stone; and the moment grace is felt, then the hardest heart will melt.” Such was the motivation for the hymn. I’m afraid “I Asked The Lord” will never achieve such fame and acceptance for the message it delivers is too painful and alien.

Newton writes that he asked the Lord to help him grow “in faith and love and every grace” that he might know more of the great salvation that God had provided through Christ. God himself stirred Newton’s heart with such longings (as only God can and will do for those who must have more) but he was unprepared for how his prayer would be answered – through the depths of despair and torments by the “angry powers of hell.” Be careful what you ask for. Ultimately, in pure Job-like fashion, he recognized that it was from God himself that the woes came forth.

The reason for this is obvious to those whose hearts have been fashioned by grace – the death of monstrous “self” and the deeply rooted pride of man can only be slain in one way. And that is not in “living your best life now.” The call of Jesus is a call to die – that we might live (John 12:24); one of the great paradoxes of the Christ-life. God’s ways are often in such contrariness to man’s that we can rest assured that when the thoughts of natural man and the weight of the majority flood in one direction that they are wrong. (Proverbs 14:12) They are wrong because their thoughts are tainted by unrepentant sin and rebellion to God. To quote the great apostle, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) The Christian thinks, reasons and operates in a different realm by a different wisdom and with a different compass – a spiritual and eternal one.

Newton was in good company in his longings to know more of Christ. He was a brother in spirit of the apostle Paul who said, “…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10, 11) Perhaps you think such devotion is reserved only for a select few, for the great or notorious like Paul or John Newton. If so, you would be quite mistaken. In the new birth, that mystical working of God’s Spirit within our eternal souls, we are given new hearts, new natures, new desires; we are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). The inclination of our hearts has been changed from the natural bent and desire to sin and please self. The natural inclination of our hearts is now to please Him who loved us and rescued us from our sins. This is quite simply, the Christian.

What is the outcome of the re-born, yearning, Newton-like heart? These inner workings of God in the soul, breaking all the “schemes” of our fleshly inclinations, even taking away earthly joys if need be, are needful in order to find our “all” in Him. It is the death of “self.”

Indelible Grace has recorded the hymn which you can listen to below. It is both haunting and hopeful at the same time.

I Asked The Lord

I asked the Lord that I might grow 
In faith and love and ev’ry grace; 
Might more of His salvation know, 
And seek more earnestly His face.

‘Twas He who taught me thus to pray, 
And He, I trust, has answered prayer, 
But it has been in such a way 
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour 
At once He’d answer my request,
And, by His love’s constraining pow’r, 
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel 
The hidden evils of my heart, 
And let the angry pow’rs of hell 
Assault my soul in ev’ry part.

Yea, more with His own hand He seemed 
Intent to aggravate my woe, 
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, 
Humbled my heart and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried;
“Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?” 
“’Tis in this way,” the Lord replied, 
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”

“These inward trials I employ 
From self and pride to set thee free 
And break thy schemes of earthly joy 
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to His feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there.

All glory to Him who knows us better than we know ourselves. And knows just how to apply the knife in the life and death surgery on our souls. “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude :24, 25)

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.