Amazing! HymnSite.com posted featured hymns for over 20 years before it ever featured this one. Why is that amazing? What makes this one so special? Read this story and find out!
In 1738, Charles Wesley was struggling through a crisis of faith. He had tried to answer the call to ministry. He had completed seminary. He had been ordained in the church. He had gone to "the New World" (the British colony of Georgia in North America) to preach the Gospel and save the lost.
But God did not use him the way that he expected. He did not reap the harvest that he had imagined. He returned to England discouraged.
On May 21, the day of Pentecost, Charles had an experience that would change his life forever. In his journal he recorded that he had "a strange palpitation of heart. I said, yet feared to say, 'I believe, I believe!'" And that marked the beginning of a new, dynamic life in Christ for him.
One year later Charles celebrated that experience with a new hymn. In eighteen stanzas he recounted his journey to faith. The text was published the following year in Hymns and Sacred Poems with the title, For the Anniversary Day of One's Conversion. Forty years later, reduced and rearranged, O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing appeared as hymn #1 in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists. It has been the opening hymn in Methodist hymn books ever since.
In 1997, HymnSite.com began posting hymn suggestions for use with The Revised Common Lectionary. In 2018, we finally shared the story of this special hymn. It is a journey that has taken many years. But then, Charles Wesley's journey to faith took many years, too. He commemorated the anniversary of his conversion in the best way that he knew--he wrote a hymn. Ponder your own journey and celebrate your conversion as you read these words.
| 1. O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace! |
2. My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name. | |
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3. Jesus! the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease; 'tis music in the sinner's ears, 'tis life, and health, and peace. |
4. He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free; his blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me. | |
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5. He speaks, and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive; the mournful, broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe. |
6. Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy. | |
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Sing your Redeemer's praise today and every day.
God bless you--
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God bless you!
| Passages suggested are from The Revised Common Lectionary: Consultation on Common Texts (Abingdon Press, 1992) copyright © by the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT), P.O. Box 340003, Room 381, Nashville TN 37203-0003. Reprinted with permission of CCT. |