Last week someone asked me if I had a favorite hymn. That is tough to answer. It is like asking if you like vanilla ice cream better than chocolate ice cream. It depends on the situation and one’s mood. There are great praise hymns and there are soft meditative hymns. It is difficult to imagine when the Wesley brothers began writing hymns the saints were scandalized. Before then they sang scripture passages. How could they abandon God’s word to sing these insipid syrupy poems? Now it is difficult to imagine worship services without them.
Most likely my favorite is a quiet hymn that speaks of friendship with God and talking with Him like you would with a walking companion. “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses.” It is the chorus that appeals to me. “He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.” I treasure the experience so much I almost get jealous thinking you might have the same experience. I want it all for myself. Sorry about that.
What is your favorite hymn and why? Is it one of the majestic themes that carry you out of yourself into another realm? Is it something you learned as a child? Does it have words that carried you through a rough patch in life? Do you ever turn off the car radio and just sing it when there is no one around to hear you go off key? Music is one of God’s gifts to us. It feeds a part of us neither prose nor poetry can do.
Spring Of Life