Posted on by PaulHartC

O God Beyond All Praising

Verse 1:
O God beyond all praising, we worship you today
and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay;
for we can only wonder at every gift you send,
at blessings without number and mercies without end.
We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your Word,
we honor and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.

I struggled to decide on how to categorize this piece. When my wife played the music for me, saying she wanted to walk down the aisle at our wedding to it, I knew it was a hymn, though I couldn’t have told you the words. Digging through my hymnal collection at the time yielded no results. This was because only one hymnal I have seen in recent memory even has this hymn included. Thus, it is a forgotten gem to those of us who once have heard it and a hidden treasure to those who need its magnificence in their life.

I say magnificence completely without sarcasm. First, this melody is nothing short of incredible. If you’ve not heard it, especially the transcription for organ, I recommend you stop reading this and go find it. It will be worth your time, to say the very least.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, are the words paired with this tremendous score, written by Michael Perry. The verse printed above shows the magnificence I spoke of. The words paint a picture of God being fully and completely out of our grasp. He is beyond our praising. We can only sit in wonder. And though we try to sing, those songs are wholly inadequate.

Now it is tempting here to write about God’s mercy and how His ultimate transcendence is of no consequence, but I feel that to be a cop-out. For all we know about God’s making a path for us to return to Him, we must never forget that He is still God. He is so far beyond us, limitless in all He can give, and speaking words which offer supreme authority. We will never be Him; we could never take His place. He offers us relationship because He loves us, not because we deserve it or, in many ways, can even handle it.

And this staggering transcendence, this overwhelming awe we ought to experience every time we think on Him, is exactly the reason why we can trust and wait on His perfect, holy ways.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

Posted on by PaulHartC

Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Verse 1:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.
Refrain:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!

I love getting my hands on a new hymnal, or at least new to me, and peruse the pages for a hidden gem I’ve never before heard. Recently, all of the books in my library, including my hymnal collection, ended up in a Christmas Tree made of books. At the same time, my wife wanted to start singing hymns to our five-month-old daughter, so I found an electronic hymnal to use until my others are freed. Among the classics I’ve heard a thousand times before and some strange new faces lay this brand new classic, Brighten the Corner Where You Are.

The words are simple, no ebeneezer or bulwarks here. The melody is bright, quick, and what some might even call chipper. In fact, there is nothing overtly Christian until the third verse, which might be a big reason why it is no longer a popular song in the churches I have frequented. But these are all the reasons this song captured my attention so strongly.

What is so striking about this song is that it does what few other praise and worship songs do: give us something to do other than sing! Not that there isn’t a time and place for taking us out of the picture to worship God, that is incredibly important and probably should be the bulk of how we worship. However, in our 1+ hour services, how much is actually devoted to practically and straightforwardly telling people how to respond to their faith? Maybe an application in a sermon, and rarely the benediction.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are is a call to act on your faith now and every opportunity you have. God offers us opportunities to act in all kinds of ways for all types of people, even though we may not know who might receive the message. The refrain says “Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar” (bar being like a sand bar or some sort of obstruction), meaning that the people we might touch could be far out of our understanding. God is in control, though, and our response to faith will be used in ways we cannot possibly imagine.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran