Joy in my heart, yet sorrow in my spirit

 

I have mentioned to a few folks that I am singing my way through Hymns of the Christian Life, the hymnal of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. I am somewhat surprised that I know the majority of them. Caleb Saw the Lord was one of the hymns this morning. I love this hymn. And when I was languishing in the hospital the summer of 2021, my daughter Anne often sat with me and sang from this hymnbook, including this one.

What a joy it is to sing these hymns! What a message they have, how rich they are. Since this is an Alliance hymnal, so many of these songs are full of the message of the Alliance: Jesus Christ: Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, Coming King. Amen!

We affiliated with the Christian & Missionary Alliance way back in 1978, when we began attending Alliance Bible Church in Memphis, TN. I’ve been singing these hymns since then: attending Alliance Bible Church, pastoring Brent Alliance (Pensacola, FL), First Alliance (Macon, GA), Bible Covenant Community Church (York, SC); District Conferences (in what used to be the Southern & South Atlantic Districts), and Annual Councils. I witnessed the transition from the Blue book (my personal favorite) to the Red book (nobody’s favorite), to the Burgundy book. No wonder I’m fluent in our hymnology!

Such joy in my heart, to not only worship the Lord and revel in His marvelous, matchless grace as expressed in these songs, but to also be carried back to those good days of yesteryear. Such sweet fellowship and good friendships. Of course, not every moment was a highlight, but I overlook the sad times, and dwell on the good times. What a treasure. In fact, it reminds me of something the Lord said, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (Matthew 13:52) These are my old treasures.

Ah, as I sing my way through the hymnbook, there is a certain sorrow in my spirit. Sorrow? Yes. These songs aren’t sung anymore (in my circles). There is a generation that not only doesn’t sing them, they’ve never seen them, or even heard of them. This is a day that’s never coming back. I’m not throwing rocks at anyone, I played a part in this transition. We transitioned to choruses, today it is modern worship music. (Speaking of sorrow, even the choruses we used to sing are now forgotten!) So I’ve been on both sides of this. I love the choruses and appreciate modern worship music, but I’m here to testify, there is a depth in the hymns that contemporary worship music simply doesn’t have. A richness. A fulness. It also saddens me that we no longer sing our theology.

So yes, I have a measure of sorrow of heart as I sing. But, as Isaiah wrote, and we used to sing (!!), Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. (51:11) Amen!

Let me end this on another high note. The image below is two pages from the blue Hymns of the Christian Life (1935): Lilly of the Valley on the left and Caleb Saw The Lord on the right. We sang these two quite often and, as you can see from the notations, I marked the chords so Mary could play the autoharp while we sang. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD. (Psalm 104:35)