Noteworthy Blog

Music has a way of cementing a memory like no other form of communication can. For me, this one takes me back to a youth conference in the mid-90s where we sang this song to a whole new rockin’ beat. Now, it was the 90s. I had hair, baggy pants, round metal frame glasses, and a fanny pack. The music was just as cool. And the youth conference worship band had my full attention. It was da bomb! It was likely with more joy that Edward Mote wrote this hymn. He’s quoted as saying, “One morning it came into my mind as I went to labour, to write an hymn on the ‘Gracious Experience of a Christian.’ As I went up to Holborn I had the chorus, On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. In the day I had four verses complete, and wrote them off…. On the Sabbath following… by the fireside [I] composed the last two verses… “ The hymn was first published in 1836, and then in 1863, the tune “Solid Rock” was written for it. It has been published in over 1,000 hymnals. Over the ye...

Luke writes a detailed account of Jesus appearing to the disciples along the road to Emmaus. In Luke 24:29, one of the disciples said to Jesus (whose identity was still hidden from them at that time), “…stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent.” This verse is the basis of the hymn “Abide With Me”, written by Henry Francis Lyte back in 1847. Many historians believe Lyte wrote this earlier in life, but it was published the year he passed. While suffering from Tuberculosis, he sent the poem to his daughter shortly before he died. Hymnologist J.R. Watson notes, “Lyte’s genius takes the quotation and turns it into a metaphor for human life in all of its brevity. At the same time, by changing ‘Abide with us’ into ‘Abide with me,’ he deepens the feeling by making it speak to the individual, in prayer or meditation.” It’s hard to read through this and not observe pain and suffering. If Lyte wrote this in his last days, as some believe, one can easily see the tension...

It just so happens that I’m writing this on July 4th only 247 years after the Declaration of Independence was ratified and the US became an independent nation. What better time to talk about our dependence on God? The song “Lord I Need You” by Matt Maher is one of those songs that reminds us of our need for God – always. Psalm 100:3 says, “…It is he who made us; and we are his…” In C.S. Lewis’s book “The Four Loves,” he describes what this song is about as “need-love.” Lewis defined “need-love” as the love that is dependent, like a child’s love towards its mother. He writes, “But man’s love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love.”   Verse 1 Lord I come, I confess Bowing here, I find my rest Without You, I fall apart You’re the one that guides my heart Chorus Lord, I need You, oh, I need You Every hour, I need You My one defense, my righteousness Oh God, how I need You Verse 2 Where sin runs deep, Your grace is...