Jeremy L. Berg

Do you have a song that you have said, “I want this played at my funeral?” “If I Stand” by Rich Mullins is that song for me. It’s by a fellow ragamuffin for Jesus. It has been my “life song” since college, since I gave my life to Jesus. Still, I realized today that I’ve never really stopped to ponder the lyrics and why this song speaks to my heart.

Looking at the lyrics today, I’m realizing more why this is “my song.” I’m a naturalist who resonates with seeing and feeling God’s presence in the morning sun, evening moon, prairie wind and ocean tide. My life verse is from Jeremiah 20 which references a fire that burns warmly in my heart and I am weary of holding it in. I’m a man driven by rugged loyalties, and the gospel I preach calls people to a faith that is more than mere sentiment, but a wholehearted allegiance to Jesus and His Kingdom alone (not a national flag, etc.).

But it’s the chorus that flattens me and brings me to tears. For I have found it hard to stand firm as a pastor, leader, father and husband. I live with a deep and ever present sense of dislocation, like I’m not fit for this world, like I don’t have the basic equipment to show up for everyday stuff. I feel perpetually out of place, a misfit drifting on a cold iceberg who can’t even find my way to the island of misfit toys.

I’m standing on thin ice, but also on the promise that God will pull me through. When I fall, as I constantly do, I am hopeful I’ll land on grace more often than not. Joy has often been elusive for me, and my lack of it has left a hazy fog over my ministry, marriage and everyday life. I can describe the Music that is higher than the songs of earth in sermons and books, and I can invite others into the Dance, but many days I can’t hear it or feel the music myself. I’m like a deaf person at a country line dance, looking around and trying to fake it. But other days I feel the divine groove pulsating in my soul like a thousand claps of thunder, rattling and shaking me to the core.

I want to sing (and preach and father and love and teach and minister) from a place of overflowing joy that is born of the Spirit and not of my whimpering flesh, but most days I’m just a man weeping — silently, secretly, invisibly — and longing for his home.  By God’s grace, I’ll get there someday, but the mystery that keeps both dazzling me and confounding me is the spiritual truth that Jesus trying to find His home in my frazzled, anxious soul.

“Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:25). 

So, I guess I should be prepared for a mid-air existential collision, as I try to escape myself while the God of the Universe tries to enter in. What a mystery. What a scandal of grace is that collision.

Here’s the lyrics and my little crack at it.

IF I STAND by Rich Mullins

There’s more that rises in the morning than the sun
And more that shines in the night than just the moon
It’s more than just this fire here that keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger than this room

And there’s a loyalty that’s deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through
And if I can’t let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home

There’s more that dances on the prairies than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean than the tide
There’s a love that is fiercer than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother’s when her baby’s at her side

And there’s a loyalty that’s deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through
And if I can’t let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home