Strangely Dim

Strangely Dim….. our row sang the right words,, At first by accident and then out of refusal to accept the “new version”. The reasoning behind the change of words the pastor explained…. the putting a new tune to it didn’t go with our brains either. It’s like singing Happy Birthday to a different tune; it can be done but why? So that bothered me the rest of the day… or perhaps not bothered …okay yes, it bothered me.

What is strangely dim and why did the author put it there. So,,, according to my research “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” was written by Helen Lemmel. She was a gifted musician and singer and taught music at Moody Bible Institute. She was inspired to write “Heavenly Vision” which we call “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” based on the remarks made by a very gifted artist who felt called after praying for two years, that she must lay down her love of art in order to fix her eyes solely on Jesus, and on His calling to the mission field. She subsequently served for more than 38 years as a missionary to Muslims of Algeria. She also authored several books and tracts. The following is an excerpt from her tract, Which Passion Will Prevail?

“Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen harmless worlds at once — art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the good hiding the best.”

It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? Dare to have it out with God, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His Glory. Turn your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him.”

– Lilias Trotter

So in light (pun intended) of knowing now what I know about the words “strangely dim” I still want to keep the old words and the melody even more than it simply being a part of my musical history. Trotter was an artist. I connect with artists. She loved putting colors on canvas and making them leap out in beauty. Yet, her love for God and serving him was stronger than her love for painting. To use “dim’ for an artist whose idea of light makes the canvas live, was to remind us that to dim the lights means you can still see the objects; they are simply not as bright. But as we are in the “dimness” our eyes get used to it and we think it’s light. God made our eyes accustom to darkness so we can see.

But strangely dim…. I see (pun intended) is not the same kind of dimness we think about. It’s a strange dimness. We can’t see as well; we can’t accustom to the darkness and the oddity of lack of light. When we focus on what God wants us to see and His beauty, the things in life that draw us away from him are strangely dim. They are there but it’s different, it’s odd, it’s dark, it’s strange and because we are focused on God, the light is so bright from His glory that we can’t accustom our eyes to the attraction the other stuff used to have on our lives. The more we focus on Him, the more we have a hard time getting our eyes to see what is in the darkness; it’s a strangely dim situation.

So actually the song written with the original words remind us that turning our eyes to Jesus who is the “light” does affect our ability to focus on things that are not in the light. I’m not sure God is calling all of us to lay down our paintbrushes and go to the Mission field, but he is called us to a mission.

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