Nearer To Thee

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Psalm 119:148-152
            My eyes are awake before each watch of the night that I may meditate on your promise. In your steadfast love hear my voice; O Lord, in your justice preserve my life. Those who persecute me with evil purpose draw near; they are far from your law. Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true. Long ago I learned from your decrees that you have established them forever.

Nearer my God to Thee

Verse 1
Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me
Still all my song shall be nearer my God to Thee Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee

Verse 2
Though like the wanderer the sun gone down Darkness be over me my rest a stone
Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer my God to Thee Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee

Verse 3
There let the way appear steps unto heav'n All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv'n
Angels to beckon me nearer my God to Thee Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee

Verse 4
Then with my waking tho'ts bright with Thy praise Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise
So by my woes to be nearer my God to Thee Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee

Verse 5
Or if on joyful wing cleaving the sky Sun moon and stars forgot upward I fly
Still all my song shall be nearer my God to Thee Nearer my God to Thee nearer to Thee

 Sarah Flower Adams 1805-1848   CCLI Song # 78835

             Sarah Adams spent most of her short life saying goodbye.  When she was only 5, her mother died.  At 32, herself now a well-known actress, her health failed and she said goodbye to a promising career as a Shakespearian actress.  Within months, her only sister died.  In the midst of these losses, she wondered why God was so far away. Her pastor, as a distraction, asked her to help him write a hymnal and she eagerly agreed.  She wrote 13 hymns and 62 tunes. The Pastor mentioned that he was planning to preach on “Jacob’s Ladder” at the service commissioning the hymnal and she realized that her own life was like a ladder.  So she wrote a 14th hymn, “Nearer my God To Thee”. Legend says that on the night of April 12, 1912, as the great ship Titanic, slipped beneath the waves, this was the song the band played on the promenade; ”still all my song shall be, nearer my God to thee!”.

Prayer:  Lord the journey of life can be sometimes long and hard, yet we know every step of the journey brings us nearer to you.  And so we climb the ladder of life in hope. Amen.   

Here is my favorite version from Fernando Ortega:

 
 
Craig Fourman