Do You Know My Jesus? -- Vesphew Benton Ellis and William F. Lakey

 

Two partners who loved God and music -- that is the short description of “Vep” Ellis and Bill Lakey. They must have shared a lot of ideas with each other in the southeastern Tennessee music company where they both were in the mid-1950s, and from where they authored a song-question “Do You Know My Jesus?” There’s not a lot more that needs to be exposed in this, except that these two came up with more than a single question when they composed this song. Perhaps one of them thought the original question was so effective, that more questions to fill out the verses was the best way to embody their thoughts and coax hearers to an answer. It’s really the only answer, despite the multiple questions they ask.

 

Ellis and Lakey were collaborators while working for the Tennessee Music Company (in Cleveland, Tennessee), so one can imagine the two penned the words for ‘Do You Know…?’ while there in the 1956-57 period. It’s said that Lakey actually crafted the song’s chorus first, a set of simple words that composed a few questions. The questions are rhetorical, since neither Bill Lakey nor his partner, Vep Ellis, offered any direct answer for those who would listen to their queries. Or did they? By framing their words this way, and really describing what this Jesus does in each line they write, Ellis and Lakey offer Him as the solution. The original four questions that Bill offered in 1956 included three, in addition to the song title, that indicate Jesus has three important qualities that close the gap between us and Him: Divine versions of friendship, love, and an abiding presence. ‘Can anyone else meet these, the way He does’, is Lakey’s unspoken question. They must have impacted Vep Ellis and captured his own imagination, so that he composed another set of eight questions, ones that intend to pierce the hard shell of the person who’s grown calloused. Vep’s three verses reportedly emerged the following year, in 1957, so his friend’s chorus words were working on him for many months, until his own thoughts coalesced around some key human struggles. We humans become ‘weary’, and need ‘rest’ (v.1). And, we have things that are deep inside our ‘heart(s)’, and experience ‘sorrow’ that needs salve (v.2). Vep examines those heart issues even more in verse 3 with several synonyms -- our ‘disappointments’, the ‘cry’ each of us voices, the ‘heartaches’ we feel, and ‘tears’ that we shed. It’s as if Vep is saying ‘don’t run and try to deny that you have things that sting’.  Perhaps Bill and Vep were moved by an individual they’d encountered, someone who seemed to be at a dead end emotionally and spiritually. Or, was this autobiographical for either Bill or Vep? We’ll have to ask them later (unless someone out there in blogger-land can provide some more insight!).

 

Are Bill’s and Vep’s questions deep inside, or on the very surface, for you? Either way, these two offer one prescription. Could it be that their solution is suggested through inference, because they’d surmised that what works best on the human psyche is discovery of an answer on one’s own, to admit to oneself what is needed? Even God doesn’t try to force my devotion. He instead tries, in His divine calculus, to draw me toward Himself. Yes, the option of walking away from Him is there, even though it’s an awful one, compared to Him. Just look inside yourself, Bill and Vep might say. Nobody else is there to coerce you. Be real with yourself. What are your answers?    

 

See brief biography here on author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/e/l/l/i/ellis_vb.htm

 

See a fellow blogger’s thoughts/research on this song: https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/do-you-know-my-jesus/  

 

See more here: https://hymnary.org/person/Ellis_VB

Let Him Have His Way with Thee -- Cyrus S. Nusbaum

 

Cyrus Silvester Nusbaum was a 26-year old first-time pastor who was probably wondering if he had chosen the right path. He wasn’t making much, and he felt even less reward spiritually and emotionally for the work about which he was engaged in 1887 in southeastern Kansas (including around Wichita, see its flag here). And so, he asked himself a series of questions in one late-night prayer, and then answered “Let Him Have His Way with Thee” when he was through. Perhaps Cyrus had put on the scales what he thought he’d received, versus what he’d given, and decided that the relative weights of those things were not so out of balance after all. In fact, he must have decided that he was getting much more than he’d given, and that some of what was in his credit column he’d not even set eyes upon yet. Let’s see what turned around Cyrus’ calculations.   

 

Pastor Nusbaum was trying to look after no less than seven different groups of believers in his first year of ministry, a challenge that must have weighed heavily upon his wife and himself. They had hoped for better news when they attended the church’s (Methodist) conference that year, but instead they were called upon to remain in the arduous task where they were. So, Cyrus did what any good pastor, nevertheless feeling discouraged and frankly rather defiant, would do: he prayed. It was around midnight, hours after he had heard the news that he had hoped would be better, and his wife was already asleep. Alone, he evidently thought about how much he owed God and what he was willing to give of himself, and these came out in a series of questions, nine in all. The three poetry verses that Nusbaum authored showed he weighed the advantages and disadvantages in each stream of thought. He determined that following Jesus, and the pursuit of purity and goodness along the straight and narrow was a price he could pay, if God would be there to help him with the heavy load (v.1). By verse 2, Cyrus was seeing the gifts from Him more readily – the spiritual freedom, peace, and salvation were his if he just surrendered and allowed Him to do his will upon Cyrus’ life. Finally, Cyrus saw that a rest and the divine guarantees were immutable rewards that were his when he lived a life of giving his very best back to this God (v.3). So, delayed gratification was part of what helped Cyrus transform his approach, with the thought of incalculable riches that awaited in Eternity. And, he could count upon this God to not make the burdens of his ministry unbearable; in fact, those adverse things he could chalk up as part of the landscape of his chosen life of acquiring peace through complete sacrifice. This was a life in which Jesus’ power, blood, and love (refrain) could outflank all other enemies that might afflict Cyrus Nusbaum.  

  

Cyrus’ season of difficulty in southeastern Kansas did not continue forever. Though he spent most of the rest of his life in Kansas, Nusbaum went on to other legs of service in the Kingdom, including serving at a college, and later as a Red Cross inspector in France in World War I. But, because he continued in various roles in Kansas and elsewhere (including evangelism campaigns in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas) one can assume that the lessons he learned in his initial foray into professional ministry stuck with him until the end, in 1937. He can probably tell you and me, when we meet him, that to let Him have His way, no matter where this submission took him, was the best choice he could have made.    

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; and 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985.

 

Also see this link, showing all three original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/h/i/s/w/hiswaywt.htm

 

Also see this link for author’s brief biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/n/u/s/nusbaum_cs.htm

I Know Whom I Have Believed -- Daniel Webster Whittle

What would a 43-year old Civil War veteran have to say that I would value? Especially when he admits that he doesn’t have the answers to so many questions that I might ask...or that you might even suspect that Daniel Webster Whittle asked of himself, as he composed the words for “I Know Whom I Have Believed”. Just count ‘em, all eight of the pretty fair questions that Whittle says stumped him, and yet he contends that there’s one overriding factor that pushes all of those questions into insignificance. If that factor—that dynamic, overpowering, all-consuming fact—were true, how much would its information chip be worth today? They weren’t invented in Whittle’s era, nor even dreamed of probably, but having such a valuable piece of information today would kinda be like having a silicon chip (see a sketch here),  

a device by which so many other technological challenges fade. We don’t really understand it, do we? But we know it works!

Daniel Whittle had a life-changing experience that came about in his early adult life, something that he probably reflected upon many years later and summed up in “I Know…”. He reached the rank of major in the Union forces during the Civil War during his early ‘20s, a seminal event that scarred, but also shaped him for the remainder of his days. He lost part of his right arm in battle, and was a prisoner in a hospital – lots of negative there, right? But, it was there that he found God, apparently by reading a New Testament and reluctantly praying with a dying soldier. He’d also been greatly impacted by meeting the preacher Dwight Moody. Some 20 years later, though active as an evangelist with Moody’s support, he admitted in this song he wrote in 1883 that he was still confounded in many ways. Here’s what he says he did NOT know: 1. Why God’s grace-message had come to him; 2. Why Christ had saved him; 3. How Christ had given him faith; 4. How believing God’s message had given him peace; 5. How the Spirit acts; 6. What good or dire events awaited him, despite knowing Him; 7. When the Lord would come; 8. Where he’d meet Him when He returns. But, he did have one answer, and it was revealed by finding the ‘Who’ in his life. It was in that prisoner-of-war hospital that he’d found Him, as he said years later. Whittle was known as “Major” for the rest of his life—it’s on his tombstone, even—so it’s not a stretch to imagine him sharing many thoughts from his war experience with hearers who were eager to hear Major Whittle talk about faith. It must have struck him, even two decades later, that much of what he didn’t know in that hospital encounter still mystified him. But, knowing Him was the key.

   

Whittle would not have made a very credible journalist, would he? He still had lots of, ‘What’, ‘When’, Why’, ‘Where’, and ‘How’ questions. Me too. I cannot explain in detail how most things work, including how this computer that I’m using right now works. But, it’s got those little chips and circuits, etc. that make my knowledge gaps moot. Wow! Take that techno- wonder and imagine it as the theo-logical wonder. Try tapping into that mother board!

The following sources provided background for this story:

 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 these sites for biographic information on composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster_Whittle

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/h/i/whittle_dw.htm

http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bwhittle2.html

http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bwhittle.html

http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bwhittle6.html

See this site for all five original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/k/w/ikwihb.htm