October 30, 2000
CYBERCOLUMN:
What songs have made you who you are?
___By Berry D. Simpson
___What music do you like to sing in church? I've been thinking about that since reading a biography of singer/songwriter Rich Mullins, "An Arrow Pointing to Heaven," by James B. Smith.
___ "There are songs that you make, and there are songs that make you," Mullins says ofthe old hymns sung in church.
BERRY SIMPSON
___I wrote in the margin of my book, "What are the songs that made me who I am?" Then I started a list.
___I have been singing hymns out of the "Baptist Hymnal" now for more than 40 years, and the more I study the words of those songs, the more I realize how much they have defined my life. I have sung them since I was old enough to go to big church, and they have a permanent grip on my heart that won't let go.
___ The problem, of course, is making a list. It means leaving some old favorites off the list, and that hurts.
___ The first song I thought of was "Blessed Assurance":
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long___ I learned to love that song when Cyndi and I lived in Brownfield. The choir used to sing a version that was slower in tempo, much more like a waltz. I loved it. It wasn't as choppy as the way we usually sing it. Maybe it was doing the song in three; waltzes always lift my spirit.
___ It's hard to know exactly why a certain song means so much to me, but I know it takes a combination of melody and lyric. Powerful lyrics that are hard to sing just bounce off without sticking. And beautiful melodies with shallow lyrics get sung once and then fly away never to be remembered.
___ Amy Grant used to sing, "It's not a song 'till it touches your heart; it's not a song 'till it tears you apart." She was right about that.
___ I also listed "There is a Fountain," even though we don't sing it much nowadays. Songs about blood are out of fashion.
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains
E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.___ How else do we describe God's grace but by singing of his shed blood and his redeeming love?
___ The third song I listed was "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." I like the lilting melody and the ancient-sounding words like "Ebenezer" and "hither" and "melodious sonnet." Together they present the finest description of grace I can think of:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise;
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of They redeeming love.
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home;
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
Oh to grace, how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let They grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wand'ring heart to thee;
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,
Seal it for They courts above.___ There are hundreds of songs that I love, both old and new, and it almost hurts to start listing them because I know next Sunday I'll be reminded of another favorite I forgot to include. I also have a lot of new choruses that are "making me" even today, but I'll have to save them for another time.
___ I'll finish with a song I remember from children's Sunday School. It may be the song I've know longer than any other:
The B-I-B-L-E
That's the book for me
I stand alone of the Word of God
The B-I-B-L-E___ Isn't that great? Solid doctrine for a 3-year-old. It made me who I am and continues to make me today, day after day.
___ Berry Simpson is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland.
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