What songs cause your heart to thrill, to soar, when sung well, to bring chill-bumps and tingles up your spine? I love old songs and new songs! I love majestic songs and hymns. I love songs of praise and songs of encouragement. I just love to sing.
Great singing often brings tears of joy to my eyes and reaffirms my faith. I love that God’s People love to sing. In fact, when I find folks for whom singing seems a chore more than a joy I question - well, I won’t go there.
It’d take a song book to list all the songs that move my heart. Monday at a luncheon my friend Steve Kirby hosted we sang an old song I could hardly hold back on. With my voice it doesn’t take much for me to feel I’ve made a fool of myself by singing with passion (but I’ll take being a fool for God).
The song: “How Firm A Foundation” - the first verse is good but this is one of those songs that gets stronger as it goes. It was sung at Robert E. Lee, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt’s funerals and Andrew wife sung it to him shortly before he died. Hear the powerful lines as if you were hearing a great chorus and let the meaning sink in this day:
Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
Now that’s a strong stanza but the best, even in rather old language (the song is about 220 years old) overwhelms my soul:
The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”
Wow. I’d like to hear what songs move you...
