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A Good Word

Be Thou My Vision

Truly our visionary attitude throughout life is often the difference between success and mediocrity. One is reminded of the classic story of the two shoe salesmen who were sent to a primitive island to determine business potential. The first salesman wired back, “Coming home immediately. No one here wears shoes.” The second man responded, “Send a boatload of shoes immediately. The possibilities for selling shoes here are unlimited.”

For the Christian, vision is a true awareness of Christ in all of His fullness and enabling power. This ancient eighth-century hymn text from Ireland is still meaningful for us today with its expression of a yearning for the presence and leading of God in our lives. The earnest prayer is enhanced by such quaint but tender phrases as “Lord of my heart,” “Thy presence my light,” “bright heav’n’s Sun,” and “heart of my own heart.” The text states that when we allow God to have first place in our lives, He becomes our treasure; we care no more for the pursuit of riches or “man’s empty praise.”

The entire Irish poem (c. 700s) was first translated into English in 1905 by Mary E. Byrne, a research worker and writer for the Board of Intermediate Education in Dublin, Ireland. Several years later, Eleanor H. Hull, a writer of English history and literature, put the prose into verse form and included it in her book of poems: The Poem Book of the Gael. The melody for this hymn is a traditional Irish folk melody.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart,
nought be all else to me save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word,
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Taken from Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions. ©1990, 2002 by Kenneth W. Osbeck. Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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