One Step at a Time -- Thomas J. Shelton

 

He was 31-year old minister, perhaps on a trip to preach and coax hearers onward and upward. That much could be said of Thomas Jefferson Shelton, Jr., but little more. Where was he when he penned the words “One Step at a Time”? A question mark is the only answer, though we could surmise how he was feeling, or that his words voiced the emotions of others at the time. These were sentiments that he’d probably heard or seen expressed on countless faces in his travels, when he was communicating something transcendent to crowds who otherwise might have walked away feeling despondent. How does one keep taking steps, instead of laying down in misery? That seems to be the drift of Thomas’ poem, with a conclusion that he indicates has but one image – heavenly mansions (perhaps something not too different from the one shown here, an English country house called Harlaxton Manor, in Lincolnshire) that the believer aims to inherit.

 

Thomas Shelton was born in 1849 in Kentucky and died some 80 years later in Colorado, so was it somewhere between those two states where he spent much of his time, including in 1880 when he was thinking about steps? He reportedly spent more than a decade as an evangelist – in other words, his objective was to convert individuals to the Christian faith – including the year when ‘One Step…’ was composed. The exact location may be unknown, but Thomas may have seen something that he thought was a common thread over those many years and in all those places – despair and a vacant feeling among those he met. These might have been people who needed a reason to press on, whose hearts needed what he had to say. Could his words may have been theirs, ‘….flesh…so weak and hopeless’ (v.1), with ‘…faltering feet’ (v.3), people full of ‘fear’ (v.4)? As an expositor of the bible from which he preached, and the beliefs he’d accepted, Thomas undoubtedly was duty-bound to tell hearers that faith in Christ was not something one could physically see or touch in this life. So, much of his poem tells of ‘…know(ing) not what is before’ (v.1), of ‘…not walking by sight’ (v.2), admissions that would discourage those who wanted something tangible. And yet, Thomas tells them that taking ‘one step’ more is the only way to progress, to grow in faith and hope. You won’t get more than that, he tells them. At least, you won’t arrive at a different reality until you hear Him, the ‘dear Savior’, at the last. And, appropriately so, that last reality is articulated in Thomas’ last few words of his final verse.

 

The Savior’s voice, His words, created in the beginning all that I can see. And, He will be all that you and I need in the end. There is debate over whether an actual mansion awaits each believer, or instead if it will be just a great room (according to various bible translations). He’s capable of providing either of those, but should I even desire that? Why does Jesus even mention that word (John 14:2)? Could it be that He saw on 1^st Century faces the same weary expressions that Thomas Shelton did 18 centuries later? And so, he bestows on us a promise of a beautiful home. It’s not the home, but the presence of Him we all seek. The stunning abode will just be what happens to come with this God, an expression of His love and goodness. He can do anything, present any gift, save and reward believers in any way He chooses. You got a God who can do all that?   

 

 

See here for all the song’s verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/n/e/s/one_step.htm

 

Very brief biographic information on the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/e/l/shelton_tj.htm

What Will Your Answer Be? -- Tillit S. Teddlie

 

Was this the only question he ever asked in song? It was the mid-1930s (perhaps about 1935), and Tillit Sydney Teddlie would live to double his age beyond that point in his life; yet, most likely he did not know he’d have so many more years to coax, encourage, and warn people about the eternal future with the words “What Will Your Answer Be?” He was a lifelong Texan, spending a large amount of his effort in Hunt County (northeastern Texas), though he got around to many of the surrounding counties during his 102 years on earth. Perhaps it was all the people to whom he’d preached or with whom he’d sung songs, up to his life’s midpoint, that prompted his question. And, there would be more than one question on his lips – in fact, a whole series of them. He evidently did not want to leave unchallenged the inertia he must have seen in so many people that he’d encountered. He’d already said what was on his heart so many times, probably to some of the same people yet again, but this time he approached them in a different way.

 

Tillit Teddlie wrote over 100 songs in his life, but this one in the mid-1930s may have been the only one with a question mark in it so prominently. He must have prodded and otherwise tried to convict and convince many wavering souls in the 85 years after he gave himself to God as a teenager. These episodes including singing school classes, sermon deliveries, and publication of 14 songbooks, all of which aimed to spread the Christian faith and the fellowship of believers. Among all that fellowship, including on his 100^th birthday celebration at a church in Dallas, it must have stung Tillit’s heart to ponder that perhaps some of those present, who hadn’t yet submitted to God, would be missing from the eternal fellowship. That’s the kind of moment one can imagine troubled Tillit the most, spawning the direct question he used to try to pierce the hard shell of each lost and indifferent person whom he met. No more beating around the bush, he might have said. ‘Where will you spend eternity?’ (chorus) Facing the divine judge is not a shrug-your-shoulders kind of moment, Tillit thought, and so he began his musical plea by setting that scene, and asking the question that was the song’s title. It’s a very personal self-examination that Tillit urges. If you don’t line yourself up for heaven, ‘What will (your) sentence be?’ (v.2), he asks bluntly. ‘…O, what will it be?’, he cries fervently in the last few words of this appeal. Tillit was after hearts, and if he had to break them to penetrate with the truth, that’s what might save some who were otherwise condemned. Make the God-Son your answer, this writer says (v.3), for the choice is yours. ‘Now is the time…’ (v.3), and you can sense that he’s trying to nudge the uncommitted gently, yet persistently.

 

How reasonable is it to love people, and not tell them what they need to know? Could that have been another question, perhaps between Tillit and himself, that helped compel his poetry here? With 100 years in the rearview mirror, how did Tillit feel about his life’s work and the countless numbers whom he had touched? In his innermost thoughts, Tillit might have admitted that there were some people whom he wished weren’t still on the outside looking in. But, none of us accomplishes all that we want to do, and that’s just part of the human experience. You’re never going to get it all right, nor be able to successfully field all of life’s questions. Tillit would have instead recommended that you and I need to ask and answer some questions with one overriding priority in mind. What is your highest priority today?         

 

 

 

See brief biography of the author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/t/e/d/teddlie_ts.htm

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillit_Sidney_Teddlie

 

https://hymnary.org/person/Teddlie_Tillit

 

See biography on composer also in Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

Almost Persuaded -- Philip Paul Bliss

 

Do you think that someone might have said to this author ‘Thank God you were not just “Almost Persuaded”, and let slip away the memory of that sermon that coaxed your poem’? If ever he were asked, Philip Paul Bliss might have responded that the minister whose words rang in his ears deserved some measure of credit for what Philip would write.  The minister that sparked Philip’s imagination was preaching to a crowd that was sitting and looking up at him from pews (maybe not too different from these shown here), but he could not have really expected that one of these seats would be the birthplace of a song that very day. Given what he had to say to conclude this sermon, he must have instead hoped that this would be the spiritual birthplace of one or more souls who would be moved by his words – that someone would accept God at that very moment. But even if no one responded to this minister’s plea on that occasion, Philip’s resulting song would have the desired impact more than once in future years. And, it’s a sermon that just keeps preaching, over 150 years later.

 

Philip Bliss had written enough songs by the time he sat in a church in 1871, that he had probably grown something like musical antennae, and could sense when a special moment was happening, when a song might be emerging. And so, the message he heard from a minister named Brundage resounded in the 33-year-old heart of Philip that day, especially during what we might say was the ‘altar call’ the minister made at his sermon’s conclusion. Perhaps this Minister Brundage had actually heard someone procrastinate to his face with the very words ‘You almost persuaded me’. Was he also perchance preaching about how an ancient king named Agrippa once used similar words to stiff-arm a persistent evangelist like himself (see Acts 26:27-28)? Many accounts of the song’s impact are recorded later, especially those in which Ira Sankey, a fellow songwriter of the time, was present to capture those moments when listeners to a message took action. They weren’t part of the almost crowd. But, tragically, at least one other episode ended with an Agrippa-like outcome – almost, but not yet.  How many people wrote or spoke to Philip about these gnawing words, how they pierced the tough, calloused heart of someone? Philip must have had his own memories of one or more malingerers, of those who just had other things more urgent on their agendas. It’s not a ‘convenient day’  (v.1), they might have said, or perhaps they avoided hearing the ‘prayers rise from (other) hearts so dear’ (v.2), or especially did not appreciate that ‘doom comes at last’  with a ‘bitter wail’ (v.3). These sound almost like personal memories, don’t they?

 

The words of Philip and the minister who first spoke them are like cattle prods, if you are that procrastinator, a postponing kind of person. ‘Get up from that seat!’, Philip would say. Delay no longer! You know deep-down what you should do, so what’s holding you back? If you could just see your future alternatives clearly, perhaps that would be the spur to action. But, God must have your faith, first. And, that means doing this without seeing it, first. That makes this thing something that can be side-stepped, if you’re the kind who demands concrete evidence. Yet, consider this: you’re headed somewhere, to a place that no one has ever returned from with concrete evidence. Will that ever change? This is a sightless adventure, so taking a somewhat blind plunge will be required.  And, almost won’t be close enough. Join the rest of us, who’ve been persuaded, and convinced. You won’t be sorry you left almost in the rear view mirror.  

 

See more information on the song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.

 

See the link here for the story also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/a/l/m/o/almostpe.htm

 

See here for author information: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/l/i/s/bliss_pp.htm