Teach Me Lord to Wait -- Stuart Hamblen

He was a 45-year old former alcoholic, singing cowboy, actor, radio personality, and presidential candidate (see his and his running mate’s 1952 campaign button here) when he wrote something, with a little help from what he must have been reading. Stuart Hamblen certainly didn’t look the part of a shy, retreating fellow – in fact, the apparent reverse of the person that had lived four decades in the limelight -- when he made the heavenward appeal “Teach Me Lord to Wait”. Maybe he was drawing upon his family background when he wrote the words. Could the words also have been a reflection of where he’d been, the re-creation he now was, and where he wanted to go? It was mid-life for this native Texan, but he wasn’t headed downhill and certainly wasn’t all used up.      

Stuart Hamblen began life in Texas, but really hit it big in California, in more ways than one. His father was a preacher in Texas, which must have given Stuart at least some of the background for what would take place in mid-life, after a tumultuous two decades in entertainment adventures. Hamblen was a 1930s radio and country-western movie star, and it wasn’t long until he had a record contract too. He owned race horses for a time, and by 1938 even ran for Congress (though he lost in a close race). All along the way he tried to manage the stress of his celebrity status with alcohol and gambling, a descent that found its bottom via an encounter with Billy Graham in 1949. Stuart gave himself to God, and perhaps any remaining conversion skeptics began to believe when he subsequently declined to promote beer on the radio, for which he was fired from his show. Perhaps his father’s career as a minister in Texas got Stuart’s attention during this time, too; it was in 1946 that Dr. J.H. Hamblen established the Evangelical Methodist Church in Abilene. Until 1952, the converted Stuart hosted a Christian radio show The Cowboy Church of the Air, and also ran on the Prohibition Party’s national ticket for president in the same year (though losing to Dwight Eisenhower). By 1953, this 45-year old was a twice-loser for public office, but also a converted drunk and still popular country-western musician, whose Christian faith stuck with him; Billy Graham delivered the eulogy at his funeral in 1989. “Teach Me Lord…” gestated in Stuart’s mind during these days in the early ‘50s, when he as a newfound believer and successful popular figure. Its words indicate he sought his direction from above; perhaps he also suspected the gracious Lord would bless him further – as Isaiah’s words suggested to that prophet when he thought of himself as airborne with God’s eagle wings (Isaiah 40:31).   

Hamblen wasn’t finished in 1953, despite losing an election the previous year. Two of his most well-known songs came in 1954 and 1955 – “This Ole House” and “Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sunshine In”. In 1963 he testified at one Graham crusade about his Christian faith and sang perhaps his best-known song “It Is No Secret, What God Can Do”. Between 1970 and 1999 Stuart became a member of several halls of fame – and those were just some of the highlights. He’d waited, and the Lord let him soar. What do you think he’s seeing from that eagle’s perch now?  

See these links for biographic information on the author-composer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hamblen

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Hamblen_S

http://www.hamblenmusic.com/home/stuart-hamblen/pages

See picture of composer-author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/m/hamblen_cs.htm

My Jesus, I Love Thee -- William Ralph Featherston

‘Oh to remember my commitment afresh as in my youth’, someone has said in more or less these very words. If you or I wanted to recapture what it was like, as a teenager, to sense the zeal for our Creator-Redeemer, we wouldn’t need to make something up out of thin air. A 16-year-old Canadian wrote, probably from his Montreal home (see its flag here), “My Jesus, I Love You” to show how that fervor played out for himself. And, how his words came to be published showed he wanted to share this overflowing sensation. But, could he have expected that what he wrote would travel so far, to another continent? This sequence of events showed the potency of his expression, of how universal his thoughts and the One to whom they were directed must have been.

William Ralph Featherston is believed to have written “My Jesus, I Love Thee” in 1862 in the afterglow of his conversion, kicking off a series of further events that have allowed his thoughts to endure for the last 150-plus years. He must have been a young man (even if just 16) in touch with his own moral imperfections, prompting his turn to the Divine to salvage himself and spurring the heartfelt poetry he chose to mark the occasion. It was further evidence of this ebullience when he sent the words to an aunt in Los Angeles. She must have been someone he reckoned would especially appreciate his life-changing decision and rejoice with him in the poem he related to her. Did she also have connections in the music publishing world, or under what circumstances did she pass along her nephew’s rhyme to someone in England, where it was in print two years later? Since he died a bare 10 or 11 years later, was William a sickly individual, suffering a physical malady that ultimately took his life, while also compelling this teenager’s self-examination and spiritual commitment? Many hymns have been planted and grow in the soil of someone’s health struggle. Featherston wrote no other hymns that we know of, heightening our appreciation for what he said this one time. Was it perhaps even something to which he clung because he could sense his own demise was near? Jesus was his, William said, so the accessibility of his God was once facet of Jesus that struck him (v. 1). His sacrifice (v.2) and the promise of eternity (v.4) also drew his heart to Him, mature concepts that this teen had nevertheless accepted. William was ready for Him, and God was ready to use him in return.                 

God doesn’t really care how youthful I am. He used someone else in her early life to do something quite unexpected, in fact incredible and totally unique by any standards before or since. Mary, of course, had little to offer, except for how she was prepared to respond once she got over the shock of what Gabriel told her. “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38) Could it be that He finds a malleable heart more often in the young, in someone who’s unaccomplished, unassuming, and maybe a bit shy and uncertain of herself? William Featherston may have been, as a 16-year-old, once perceived that way, and look what he did! Oh to be a teenager again. Hey, with God, all things are possible.  

      

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003. 

Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/m/j/e/mjesusil.htm

Take My Life and Let It Be -- Frances Ridley Havergal

“It’s all yours” is another way she might have said this the morning after an episode that touched her so profoundly that she was unable to sleep. It might be analogous to a patriotic zeal, upon seeing a nation’s flag (see England’s here), that motivates soldiers or citizens to sacrifice themselves. Frances Ridley Havergal was a 38-year old Englishwoman known for her steadfastness to God, but had any other time in her life affected her so? “Take My Life and Let It Be” was evidently not just pretty words for Frances, an often-ailing figure who must have leaned on Him especially because of her physical challenges. Was her commitment stronger because she suspected hers would be an abbreviated existence?  

As she lived in 1874, Frances Havergal had already suffered enough challenges for a lifetime, and yet she convinced others with her uncomplaining spirit that there was much that was praiseworthy, much that was available even in her delicate frame for His use. While she apparently had a gifted voice, it’s reported that she was often sick, and died with a serious infection at the age of just 42. Before her death she was a model for others of a consecrated character, a condition that especially her father, also a hymnist-writer and member of the Anglican clergy, nurtured in her from childhood. By her 30s, Frances had a well-known reputation for daily living as a spiritually-led individual, as her poetry indicated. ‘Take My Life…’ was reportedly written at the conclusion of a five-day visit to a house where she influenced 10 other people toward a new or stronger Christ-commitment. Had she used her musical voice as part of this witness to urge their lives upward, since it too was part of her God-given talent? If she did, Frances did not dwell on it, but rather credited Him with the inspiration to persuade these acquaintances of His concern for them. This included two girls with whom she was stirred from bed to converse. Afterwards, she was so moved by the experience that she lay awake that night with her own overflowing fervor. As light dawned, she had composed the six-verse poem to cap this experience. She must have thought, as she excitedly pondered the thrill of the events in the dark, that she would surrender anything to His use if she could just retain that moment of Divine success. It oozes from every verse she penned, ‘take this and take that of me’, use it all, God! Hers may have been a weak constitution, but if she truly felt as she wrote that night, maybe her physical infirmity was what she gladly accepted in exchange for making His purposes complete in herself.

What became of the 10 people to whom Frances talked during that week in 1874? Perhaps they sang the words Frances had crafted that one evening, remembering the things she’d said to push them closer to their Creator. Her lines cannot be voiced with casual attention. There’s too many objects of ‘take’ in the words, culminating in ‘all’. Those two words sum up Frances – she invited someone to take it all. That’s probably because she’d discovered it was worth it. He’s worth it.   

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

Also see this link, showing all six original verses, shown as three verses, and the composer’s story about the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/a/k/takemyli.htm

More in-depth biography of composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Ridley_Havergal

Site describing an Areley House in the United Kingdom: http://www.areleyhouse.co.uk/

Heaven Came Down – John Willard Peterson

You could say that two gentleman, perhaps two generations apart in age, wrote this song. Forty-year-old John Peterson probably did not suspect as he guided singing one day that another older man would in fact guide him to a song. But, “Heaven Came Down” through that on-the-spot coincidence of these two fellows in northeast Pennsylvania (see picture of Montrose here) in 1961, producing this musical story just a week later. You don’t know when two paths may intersect to germinate something special, but do you suppose composers are more attuned to unpredictable circumstances and the possibilities they bring?

It came about during a summer in Montrose, near the Pennsylvania-New York border in 1961, but it’s fair to say the pump had already been primed for many years in more ways than one for a musical fountain to flow. A white-haired man known only as ‘old Jim’ had evidently been converted to the Christian faith some years previously, although that experience must have still been fresh in his mind as he stood to tell his story. It was a bible conference that brought the old man to that place where the comparative youngster John Peterson was directing the forum’s singing. Peterson had been engaged in musical enterprises ever since his teenage years, including in Montrose for the Singspiration Musical Company for the previous seven years. He was a music pro. So, when he asked for folks in the crowd to share their stories, did he in fact suspect someone might recite something unique? Was he searching for that next hit? Did the music that day motivate ‘old Jim’ (we can guess from the description of him with white hair that he might have been around 80 years old or more) to pour something from his heart in a new way? Some things evidently coalesced, for when Jim uttered the words of the chorus’ first line, they captured John’s attention, who says he knew immediately this one would be a first-rate effort. The seed of the song—its embryo—is what Peterson says is most important, and he heard it that day, and saw it on the face of Jim. The old man’s face may have been wrinkled, but he radiated something potent. He’d been in contact with His Spirit, kinda like Moses, and his insides just couldn’t keep it hid.

So “Heaven Came Down” off John Peterson’s pen about a week later, perhaps as he recalled not just ‘old Jim’s’ words, but his face too. John, over the decades, wrote some 1,000 tunes, prompting one to imagine that he must have seen and heard similar faces and words as he lived and carried out his musical ministry. Montrose…it could be like any other little town in America, population about 1,500 people. But, He’s not too particular about the size and location of a place. Nazareth --  what good could come from there? Are you in a Nazareth today? Look at the faces, hear the voices…     

The following sources provided background for this story:

 Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns, by Lindsay Terry, Baker Book House 1990 and 1992; and The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Also see this site: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/p/e/t/peterson_jw.htm

Background on the song’s birthplace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose,_Pennsylvania

I Will Sing the Wondrous Story -- Francis Harold Rowley

The words he originally used sound like those of a preacher, a man asking a question of hearers as he considered what convincing words might coax their hearts. (Perhaps not unlike Jesus—see picture of Him here at the His “sermon on the mount”.)   

Francis Harold Rowley must have also spent some time talking with his musical collaborator, Peter Bilhorn, as he thought about the message he wanted to convey in “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”. What was it that Rowley thought had spoken powerfully to Bilhorn, who had only recently given himself to God? He’d been a minister himself for just eight years, and maybe he’d never been approached with a suggestion to pair words with musical notes in this expressive form before, to articulate what emotionally edgy formula was successful. If it was his only song-poem, what better message to claim as a ‘one-hit wonder’!

He was a 32-year old evangelist in Massachusetts, who was probably feeling the glow of success in the community in that year of 1886. Rowley recounts that there was lots of interest in religious messages, and his cooperation with a recent convert may have underscored for him how open hearers were to what he might say. His musical assistant, Peter Bilhorn, had become a believer just the year before, in 1885, and evidently carried the fire within him to propagate to others what had happened for himself. He had the musical skills, and as he listened to Rowley he decided this fellow had the word skills that would make a new hymn possible. Rowley clearly was motivated, for he produced what Bilhorn needed overnight. His original first line ‘Can’t you sing the wondrous story?’ may have resonated from his imagination as a speaker in the pulpit, as he addressed curious listeners. Try substituting ‘you’ for all the other ‘me’ or ‘I’ pronouns, and indeed it does begin to sound like Francis in the pulpit, trying to persuade you to give in to what your heart might have been whispering. He probably had heard his young friend Bilhorn’s story of confession and conversion, still fresh in his experience. What had compelled Peter to take the faith-step, and would that speak to others? Nothing works like a personal story to capture someone’s attention and begin to make one consider how his life parallels what he’s hearing. As a 21-year old, Bilhorn would have had a youthful zest that communicated well with others. Indeed, Bilhorn went on reportedly to produce some 2,000 songs in his lifetime. And, Francis Rowley would go on evangelizing for over 20 additional years.

Francis Rowley and Peter Bilhorn had two methods, but one message. Two lives intersected to generate a hymn that still exists over 120 years later. If you’re a speaker, see if what you describe matches what a musician nearby is trying to find words to say, and therein might lie the potential for something unique and synergistic. That’s the Rowley-Bilhorn experience. Even so, other hymn-writers might tell you that a lot of what they craft doesn’t persist decades later, making “I Will Sing…” one of the more special accomplishments. What made it endure? Maybe only He knows for certain. Maybe He also knows which ones we’ll be vocalizing, maybe even some of the forgotten ones here in this life, in the next life, maybe? Let’s go find out!       

Information on the song was also obtained from the books  101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; and The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Hear the music and read all five original verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/w/i/iwilsing.htm