Our Heavenly Father Understands -- Broadus E. Smith

 

He learned some very basic things growing up near Farmerville, Louisiana (see map), which stuck with him as closely as his birthplace by the time he reached his seventh decade of life. Broadus E. Smith probably had heard countless times by 1972 that “Our Heavenly Father Understands”, either directly or by inference, so that one could imagine that this poem he wrote as a 62-year old flowed readily from his hand and his heart. How does one establish intimacy and stay close to the Creator? Broadus had grasped the answer, and must have been teaching it to many others, even before he musically expressed the solution to this question. And yet, by making his answer into a song so it could be published, what Broadus had to say reached out much further than the northern Louisiana parish where he spent all of his life. Just how far do you think his song’s message could take you?

 

Broadus Smith grew up in a large community, both in his childhood home and probably in the church where his parents worshipped to foster the faith of himself and his brothers and sisters. Eleven brothers and sisters no doubt made Smith’s household a lively organism for his parents, who we could surmise must have prayed constantly to keep in touch with wisdom’s source! If it was like other churches where the Smith clan regularly gathered with the larger community for the weekly renewal of devotion to God, that body of believers prayed routinely, even fervently for guidance. Singing must have been as frequent as the prayer times, such that Broadus made it a significant part of his life’s work to make music and to teach it to others. Multiple music schools helped Broadus hone his skills, which he passed along via the baton and through the pen for most of his adult life. These skills translated into 100 songs that he wrote, including ‘Our Heavenly Father Understands’, which we might see as the high moment in his lifelong work. His words expressed that prayer (v.1 and chorus) was a principle he wanted to pass along to his hearers, that the God he’d known since childhood was accessible. And, more than that, a community of believers that engaged in this form of communication strengthened each other (v.1). Perhaps it was something that Broadus witnessed numerous times, that families – including spiritual ones -- that join hands together are never truly alone, whether on one’s daily walk along the ‘straight and narrow’ (v.2), or especially on one’s final day as a mortal being (v.3). The need of every human doesn’t get more basic than that, does it?  

 

What would it be like for you and me if God couldn’t understand? Some people already think that – agnostics or atheists are what they call themselves. What Broadus had discovered and written about in 1972 is that prayer is not only vertical, but horizontal. God has to be there, or my prayers are useless; that is a pivotal thing. But also, when I know others are bringing my needs and desires to Him, I don’t feel quite so forlorn, even if my situation is desperate. Could that be what impedes belief by some, that they experience life without others to help voice their innermost feelings? Or, perhaps they think He doesn’t care or understand because of a past hurt that seemed inescapable and unappeased. What might Broadus say in response? You need people, lots of them. And, this God was one of us, once. He knows what it’s like for you and me. Who else can you go to, if you don’t have Him? What have you got to lose by believing in Him and linking arms with others who do too?  

 

 

 

See the following site for very brief biography of the author-composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/m/i/t/h/b/smith_be.htm

 

Also see the following book for more information: Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, LA, 1980.