It's Me (Standin' in the Need of Prayer) – Anonymous

Could have been anyone, right? Who hasn’t needed at least one prayer spoken for himself? And so, the anonymous authorship of this traditional spiritual hymn could be appropriate, for you or me or anyone else who’s ever cried out “ It’s Me”, perhaps not in those exact words, but with a purpose to let the Creator know I’m hurt. My hurts are personal, and with maybe nowhere else to turn, I let Him know with urgency that I need Him. Maybe the anonymous songwriter may have seen others being mistreated or felt the circumstances of life for his or her community were just unbalanced (as in a 19^th Century plantation of the Deep South, shown here). Lacking power, God’s intervention was the only way for some people who may have sung this simple tune to find justice.  Or, maybe the situation was not very specific, and the songwriter just felt a need to stay in touch with the source of Divine power. Whatever the context, the song is just a way for the writer to say that moment was personal, counting on the Omniscient to hear.

Traditional spirituals like “It’s Me” (also known as “Standin’ In the Need of Prayer”) frequently found their voice in the American South among enslaved negroes in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This spiritual’s publication by 1925 (by two brothers named Johnson, in The Book of American Negro Spirituals) made it a well-known commodity in the following decades, perhaps in part because the struggle for racial equality continued long after the song’s initial publication. Younger generations would also have heard of the slavery – and the spiritual foundations that helped the oppressed endure -- from their progenitors. You can assume from the relationships mentioned in the song that a person articulating its words belonged to a community. He had parents and siblings, and neighbors, and others in the larger community whose names he may not have even known. They all shared something in common – a struggle, but not a lonely one. They counted on God. Perhaps they compared themselves to the people of God prior to their Exodus years. Yet, those people did not survive merely because they were part of an oppressed group. Even Moses, the leader, needed his own personal encounter with the I AM (Exodus 3-4), before whom he could express his deepest insecurities. The ‘It’s Me’ songwriter most likely was part of a faith group, too – note that he’s familiar with elders (some versions of the song instead mention a ‘preacher’) and deacons. He ‘went to church’, yet believed that was not sufficient to capture God’s attention. He verbalized ‘It’s me’, with his own needs.

Is it selfish to pray for oneself, putting aside others’ needs? If that was the only method I used when I pray, the answer would have to be ‘yes’. I care about those I call brother and sister, father and mother, the deacon, and the elders, and the preacher too. Even that homeless fellow whose name I know not is someone God wants me to befriend, and to feed and clothe. That’s prayer in action. ‘It’s Me’, on the other hand, indicates I ought to think of myself when I talk to Him. Why? Who knows me better than me? Maybe no one else does, other than the One to whom I’m talkin’, right? It’s the chance to confess, to draw close to Him who knows me best, to seek His intervention, and His management of me and my ‘stuff’. If I were really selfish, I wouldn’t be askin’ Him to help me with my ‘stuff’ – I’d keep it to myself. So, have you said ‘It’s me’ lately?

See here for all four verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/t/a/n/standinp.htm

See some information about the song here also: https://hymnary.org/text/not_my_brother_nor_my_sister_but_its_me

See this site for information about the genre of music into which this song falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_(music)