It Is Well with My Soul: The Sacred Roots Annual 2022-2023

T he L owliness of C hrist

147

F or Y our W eekly J ourney

Weekly Reflection on It IsWell with My Soul On the hymn, Amazing Grace: “At the level of imagery, the poem is built around a great contrast that puts two worlds on a collision course. One is a world of sin and fallenness – not just spiritually in a sinner’s personal life, but in the whole earthly order. The vocabulary continually keeps this world of decay and misery alive in our awareness, with words like wretch, lost, blind, dangers, toils, snares, fail, cease, dissolve like snow, and refuse to shine. Set over against this lower world of unideal experience is an upper world of ideal experience, portrayed with words like grace, found, good, hope, shield and portion, joy and peace, shining as the sun. The poem thus roots us in the fallen earthly order but promises us the best that can be imagined. It is a song of hope, comfort, and confidence, with misery functioning as a foil to heighten the vision of bliss.”

~ Leland Ryken, 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life: A Closer Look at Their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning . Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2019. pp. 22-23.

Let God Arise! Seasonal Focus Jesus, the Light of the World , John 9.1-41

Book Reading Peterson, Engaging with God

Our Corporate Disciplines Book Discussion: Tuesday, March 14, 2023 Concert of Prayer: Tuesday, March 14, 2023