Take Time to Be What? - Christianity Today

In the early 1880s, William D. Longstaff wrote a poem that later became a hymn called “Take Time to Be Holy.” In my branch of church tradition, we often sang this hymn. As a kid I considered it uninspiring (sorry, Mr. Longstaff), and I groaned whenever the song leader announced it. Today, decades later, I have taken a fresh look at the song and reconsidered my earlier appraisal. There’s substance here.

Take time to be holy,
Speak oft with thy Lord,
Abide in him always,
And feed on his word.
Make friends of God’s children;
Help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.

There are three more verses to Longstaff’s hymn, and the second verse is also worth quoting:

Take time to be holy,
The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus
Like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

Each line of that second verse prompts an objection from somewhere within and helps me to understand why holy people tend to be scarce.

Go down to the marketplace. Submit to the ordinary trials, skepticism, and irreligion. Let us see then if you remain holy.

“Take time …” But I don’t have time.

“The world rushes on …” And I am busy rushing with it.

“Spend much time in secret …” Secret? I like to brag about anything I do with and for Jesus.

“With Jesus alone …” Huh? And turn off my iPod and text messaging?

“Like [Jesus] thou shalt be …” I’d rather imitate Bill or Rick or Andy.

“Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see …” Don’t expect me to be that kind of example.

Despite its Victorian English, Longstaff’s hymn does a pretty good job of describing the essentials of what it takes to become holy.

Becoming a holy person is intentional; you have to work at it. When God says to Israel, “Consecrate yourselves,” he is putting the ball in our court. In other words, pursue whatever it takes to be a holy man, a holy woman, a holy nation.

Holy, a volatile word

I’ve not seen myself as a holy man, although I have longed to be one. Sometimes I’ve reasoned that I don’t have the temperament or the concentrative ability for that level of spiritual nobility. And there have been times when, despite my general intention to be holy, I have felt that I failed God so miserably that I was tempted, like someone else in the past, to settle for being a servant, not a son, in his household.

I am using the word as it was used in “be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), where the apostle challenges a fresh Christian generation to a unique lifestyle that will set it in contrast with the pagan culture. Those who received the challenge would know instantly that they were being called to something extraordinary.

Holy starts out as descriptive of the character of God. And Christians are urged to order their lives in accordance with what they know about the nature of God. Holy can also be equated with Christlikeness and the fruits of the Holy Spirit listed in the Galatian letter. This speaks to the quality of life to which Christians are to aspire.

Sadly, the word holy gets kicked around a bit these days. While some take it very seriously, others mistakenly connect the idea with pomposity, a contrived way of living that seems more designed to impress people (some people anyway) than God.

In my childhood, there was a version of faith that seemed unreal to me. It sported a special vocabulary, a way of praying, a list of prohibited behaviors, and a withdrawal from the larger world. It was a faith-style that, for me, seemed fraught with judgmentalism and arrogance even as it projected a gloss of humility. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to be that kind of a “holy” person.

I raise the subject because I wonder if the idea of being holy is losing ground today, especially among those in a position to influence the church. Are we inadvertently losing interest in being holy (in the best sense of the word) and spending our energies on problem-solving, success, personal fulfillment, and avoiding anything that smacks of suffering?

As I read the blurbs on books about authors, as I listen to the introductions and read the brochures about speakers at various conferences, and as I tune in on the illustrative stories chosen to describe modern Christians, I hear little about anyone being holy. I just hear how successful they are.

For all I know, many of these luminaries are indeed holy and embody William Longstaff’s four-verse poem. Perhaps they do take the time to be with God, and they do remind their personal friends of Jesus. But if this is true, I’d like to hear a bit more about it. It would encourage the rest of us.

Unfortunately, Christian leaders are usually accredited to us as great speakers, brilliant and creative thinkers, scintillating artists and entertainers, and powerful organizational developers. But holy people? Maybe that’s an endangered species.

When was the last time you were invited to meet someone because he or she was a holy person with a word from God?

Ever met a holy person?

I did a dangerous thing as I worked through this essay. I asked myself who, in my own Christian tradition, have I known and observed that seems a genuinely holy person? The names—each well-known—that came to my mind first were John Stott, Billy Graham, Ruth Graham, and Joni Eareckson Tada.

I added George Verwer, Jill Briscoe, Robertson McQuilken, James Houston, and Dallas Willard. They, in my estimation, are holy people. My list grew to include many others, most of whom you would not know.

Many that I could have named have done something great for the kingdom. But as I built my list, I tried to go for what I call the Life underneath the life, the being beneath performance. I was looking for those who have consistently “walked with God” (remember Enoch?) throughout life’s small and large routines.

C.S. Lewis writes: “Nothing could be more foreign to the tone of Scripture than the language of those who describe a saint as a ‘moral genius’ or a ‘spiritual genius’ thus insinuating that his virtue or spirituality is ‘creative’ or ‘original.’ If I have read the New Testament aright, it leaves no room for ‘creativeness’ even in a modified or metaphorical sense. Our whole destiny seems to lie in the opposite direction, in being as little as possible ourselves, in acquiring a fragrance that is not our own but borrowed, in becoming clean mirrors filled with the image of a face that is not ours.”

There is a wonderful story of a young brilliant rabbinical scholar who went to his superior to ask if he qualified to be a holy person—in fact, the most holy person in the neighborhood. His mentor grew irritated at the question and, at first, refused to answer. Then, because he was prodded over and over again by the young man he answered:

“You are the most pious man of our age. You study night and day, retired from the world, surrounded by the rows of your books, the holy ark, the faces of devout scholars. You have reached high holiness. How have you reached it? Go down in the marketplace with the rest of the Jews. Endure their work, their strains, their distractions. Mingle in the world, hear the skepticism and irreligion they hear, take the blows they take. Submit to the ordinary trials of the ordinary Jew. Let us see then if you remain the holiest of all men.”

The people I mentioned in the earlier paragraph have indeed (one way or another) gone to the “marketplace” and faced the ordinary trials. And I find them to be holy people because they have kept the faith in all circumstances and grown deeper as they kept it.

You know a holy person because when you are in their presence, there’s something about them that makes you feel elevated toward God.

Often when I enter the kitchen where my wife, Gail, is preparing a meal, I feel my saliva glands spring into action involuntarily. It’s the mark of a great cook that she can make this happen.

A similar thing happens when you come into the presence of a holy person. The glands of the heart spring into motion, and you experience a fresh attraction to the God this person knows.

The opposite may also happen. The presence of a holy person can cause a sudden burst of conviction. I’m thinking of a time when a celebrity known for her flagrantly immoral lifestyle came through a reception line to meet one of the people I listed above.

With a suddenness that probably surprised her as much as anyone, she burst into wrenching tears as she extended her hand. You had to believe that godless heart simply could not remain composed in the presence of someone who projected an authentic holiness.

Holy and human

An early 20th-century Salvation Army officer, Samuel Logan Brengle, embodies for me everything I could imagine a holy person to be. Brengle served God as an evangelist and revival speaker for approximately 40 years.

Clarence Hall’s biography of Brengle records these words (in the context of the Salvation Army) from an anonymous source describing Brengle: “There are men to whose name rank and title add weight, prestige; whose position in the minds of their fellows is elevated by it. But not so with Brengle. Rank does not give increase to that name; neither would lack of rank diminish it. In the minds of people the world over, the name Brengle means holiness, sweetness, love, benediction, blessing, power; Commissioner Brengle means no more. Though the rank he has recently added is just recognition of his value to the Salvation Army, it is a superfluity in the evaluation of the man himself.”

The writer here is pointing to the Life underneath the professional life, to the characteristics that point beyond the man toward the God to whom he had dedicated his life.

As a truly holy man, Brengle did not set himself above others, nor did he attempt to flaunt some kind of cheap piety.

Hall writes: “Looking him over at close range, men saw in Brengle these three: humanity, humility, and—humor … to them the most surprising of these was humor. Others (found) that this man’s saintliness sparkled and bubbled with good nature, that his humor was gentle, whimsical, graceful. His smile was the kind that opened suddenly, like a bursting skyrocket; it would start in his eyes, twinkle there, then wreathe and wrinkle over his face, shake his body, and seem to run vitalizingly to his very toes.”

People sought his presence. Again, Hall (quoting a Salvation Army associate): “I have seen the leading commissioners, engulfed with a thousand duties, set aside their papers, dismiss their stenographers, lock the door, and wait upon the American preacher. They wanted him near, they felt their need of this holy man, and all their actions seemed to say: ‘It is holy ground, Brengle is here.'”

I have read the Brengle biography at least a dozen times. Few books in my library inspire me as much as this one does when I feel that my personal arrangements with God are slipping (or, to use Longstaff’s words, when I am not spending time in secret with Jesus).

What I see is a man who knew lots about life in the streets but saw it from the perspective of knowing lots about life in the Lord’s presence. After reading of Brengle, I’m pointed in a better direction: seeking deeper communion with the Father.

Common threads of holiness

When one reads the Scriptures and the church fathers on this theme of being holy, and when one reads appropriate biographies of the great spiritual champions, and when one observes the lives of less-than-prestigious people who seem to have gone deeper with Jesus than most, you see these commonalities:

They don’t second guess their decision to intentionally follow Jesus. They possess a powerful (not necessarily spectacular) sense of personal conversion, and they readily invite others to share the same experience.
They conscientiously prioritize life so that they spend ample time in personal worship, reflection in Scripture, and prayer (listening to God and absorbing whatever God wishes for them to know and experience).
They make a steady effort to discipline their lives toward virtues that reflect Jesus. They cultivate a healthy hatred of sin and all that corrupts life.
They cultivate healthy relationships—both giving and taking—and add value to each human encounter. I might add that they usually understand that their connection with God is often in the context of “community” and not merely as solo-saints.
They engage the larger world with a humbled mind to serve and seek justice and mercy for those weaker than they.

I see these qualities in Commissioner Brengle, and I have no doubt that this man would have been a spiritual influence in any branch of the Christian movement. Not because of his giftedness as a preacher and evangelist, but because of this underlying holy life that compelled people to feel nearer to God when he was around.

Clarence Hall writes of a night when Brengle was introduced to a crowd as “the great Colonel Brengle.” He was apparently disturbed by this excessive introduction and wrote in his journal: “If I appear great in their eyes, the Lord is most graciously helping me to see how absolutely nothing I am without Him, and helping to keep little in my own eyes. He does use me. But I am also conscious that He uses me, and that it is not of me that the work is done. The axe cannot boast of trees it has cut down. It could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it, he sharpened it, he used it, and the moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron. Oh, that I may never lose sight of this.”

This perspective made Brengle tender, not hard.

“There is nothing about holiness to make people hard and unsympathetic and difficult to approach,” Brengle wrote. “It is an experience that makes a man pre-eminently human; it liberates his sympathies, it fills him with love to all mankind, with compassion for sinners, with kindness and pity for them that are ignorant and out of the way. And while it makes him stern with himself, it makes him gentle with others.”

The soil of suffering

One of the elements of Brengle’s life that many of us would like to avoid is the fact that the man knew suffering. During his assignment to the Boston Corps, he was accosted by a thug who threw a paving brick at him from a distance of just ten feet. The brick hit Brengle in the head with full force, and he almost died. He was forced to spend 18 months in rehabilitation. From then on, he suffered periodically from excruciating headaches and bouts of depression.

During his recovery, Brengle wrote what was probably his best book, Helps to Holiness, and would often quip, “Well, if there had been no little brick, there would have been no little book.”

Hall writes that Brengle “never allowed himself to give in (to physical weakness) until completely overcome, but would laugh away all minor complaints as mere trifles, maintaining a happy buoyant spirit until some malady positively forced him to bed. His spirit drilled his body into an habitually erect and optimistic carriage, which could be forced to drop but could not be induced to droop.”

Brengle said: “God does not make pets of His people, and especially of those whom He woos and wins into close fellowship with Himself, and fits and crowns for great and high service. His greatest servants have often been the greatest sufferers.” I don’t think the Commissioner would have had a lot of use for a prosperity gospel or for a faith that is devoid of struggle.

The Life beneath life

It may be time for all of us to rethink the meaning of being holy. To ask ourselves again: what is the Life beneath that life of technique, skill, and charisma to which we have recently given so much attention?

Peter is credited with the question, “What kind of people ought you to be?” He asked this while sensing that civilization as he knew it was unraveling.

With today’s realities (climate change, terrorism, globalism, human-engineering, awesome human suffering), his question is just as relevant now. And the answer—if it’s a good answer—is probably the latest description of what it means to be holy.

It’s worth a vigorous discussion for every church leadership team, every covenant group. You don’t arrive at a final definition of being holy. But you pursue it, talk about it over and over, pray for it, experiment with it, and each time you get a fresh rendition of what God wills the people called by his name to be.

A congregation, regardless of size, deserves a holy pastor whose life is on display and worthy of mimicking. Paul says as much to Timothy: be an example for the believers in speech (how you speak and what you speak about), in life (your personal life), in love (how you maintain healthy relationships—spouse and children first), in faith (how you visibly walk in alignment with God), and in purity (your morality and ethics in everyday life).

A small group deserves a holy facilitator. An organization deserves a holy president. A worship team deserves a holy worship leader. And the world of the arts deserves holy artists.

Few would disagree. But the fact remains that we are fearful of this subject, of being holy. It’s much easier to explore the steps to better friendships or better Bible study or coping with anger and insecurity.

We sometimes fear that in the pursuit of being holy, we will fall into the trap of putting on an act, or being caught when we fall short. A reasonable concern. So let’s be aware of it. Let’s have friends close enough to call us to account when need be.

I go back to William Longstaff’s hymn, which I once found so boring. Perhaps the music could be spiffed up, but leave the words as they are and sing them often. They open the doors to a recitation we all need to hear: how to pursue the way of being holy.

I bet Samuel Logan Brengle loved that song.

Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership and chair of World Relief and lives in Belmont, New Hampshire.