Saturday, August 4, 2012

In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified -- Bob Kilpatrick


Bob Kilpatrick was doing something that all believers do when they’re alone and need something from Him. He prayed. Not quite in a closet (like the one shown here), but close. It would have been hard to get his guitar, and his bible, and some light in such a confined area, but with the rest of the family somewhere else in the house, he settled in for some solitary moments in one room. Sound familiar? My version is at this keyboard in a mostly dark basement, hoping that this is a most special place between Him and me, as a personal declaration to Him, and a way to enrich my life just by connecting with Him. That’s what Bob Kilpatrick was up to that day in 1977. You can tell that Bob did not have claustrophobia – or ‘closet’-ophobia – when he was alone with God. Put yourself in his shoes and in the thoughts that he recorded, words that millions of others have tried on for size.

 It’s awful hard to close off the mind from the day’s events…to forget and stop replaying human-to-human (not always positive) interactions. Bob Kilpatrick, as member of the human race, must have been there that day too. He knew what he needed, as he pondered the music ministry he and his wife Cindy were beginning. Like other musicians, the Kilpatricks wanted to make good music that would reach other believers. But that day, Bob composed for just One, while sitting in his mother-in-law’s house. Read the song’s words. It’s evident who that was. Bob thinks that may have been the key to the song’s success - -that it started with a pure objective. He adds that it was really others, including Cindy, who pushed the song’s introduction to a wider audience. ‘Lord, I’m turned toward You…I want to stay that way’, Bob might have said very plainly. It’s an attitude that he’s not limited to just this one song. He’s written a book ‘Secrets of the Silence’, counseling his readers to do what his well-known song did for himself long ago – find a quiet place and time to be with Him. ‘Physician, heal thyself’, someone might say, but it seems that Kilpatrick’s tonic has me looking upward, not inward, for the ‘Physician’.

Bob Kilpatrick found a way to say his simple prayer, set to equally simple music, a statement that I should remember. Think of Him. Think of myself and Him, of drawing closer to Him. This may challenge your inhibition, being alone with the Omniscient. But, He’s also known as Life, Truth, and Justifier, among so many other names that are uniquely His. So, I let no one nor nothing else get between Him and me. That was Bob Kilpatrick’s method in 1977. Have you got your solitary place picked out yet?

The source for Bob Kilpatrick’s song story is the book “Our God Reigns: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2000.

See also this link for biography of composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kilpatrick

See the composer’s official website here:  http://www.bobkilpatrick.com/book.html

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