Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me(John Bell- Iona Community)
I love this hymn, and chose it today as a response to the sermon; the fourth verse always challenges me, usually it is the first two lines, but today it was the emphasis on God working in and through me that brought a lump to my throat! That God would choose to see, feel and speak through me is amazing and humbling and scary, to be challenged to use faith to make a difference is a call to stand up for what we believe!
Today I chose to stand up for the young people of Downham Market, to speak about their value to the God who created them. Too often teenagers are criticised and maligned, simply for being, to often they are lumped together and seen as a threatening mass. Yet most of the towns teenagers, like teenagers everywhere are not problem people, they are people who care deeply about the world around them, asking searching questions, yes some are lost and confused by life, but then so are many adults!
I am as aware as anyone of the problems and temptations that young people face, but surely we need to dispel the stories that they are all bad, and then to go on to finding ways to value and include them ( as much as any teen wants to be included that is!!!). I wonder if it might do us good to remember what the world looked like through our 16 year old eyes- the questions that were on our lips and those we dare not voice, but held in our hearts and minds. The world is big and confusing and scary; instead of criticism, let's be those who offer hope.....
That way more young people might come to love their hidden selves, and in discovering the love of God, they too might make a difference....
Let's face it some of them already are!
