Hymns: A 5-Day Devotional With Tasha Cobbs LeonardSample

Preserving History

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalm 63:3-4 (NIV)

Behind every good song is a good story. This is certainly true of many of the hymns we know and love — many of which were penned in the midst of great suffering.

The writer of “It Is Well With My Soul,” Horatio Spafford, lost his business in a fire. Two years later, his wife and daughters were aboard an ocean liner when it collided with another ship. All four of his daughters drowned. He wrote the song’s lyrics as he traveled to meet his wife following the devastating loss.

The writer of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” Joseph Scriven, lost not one but two women he deeply loved. The day before their wedding, he discovered the lifeless body of his bride lying in a creek bed where she had fallen off her horse. Years later, he found love again, only to be crushed a second time when his future wife passed away from an illness weeks before they were set to marry. He penned the words to this hymn in a letter to his mother, describing how a sweet friendship with the Lord had developed during times of grief.

The writer of “Amazing Grace,” John Newton, was a slave trader in England. He encountered a ferocious storm at sea that threatened to capsize his boat and all the men on it. He called out to God for help, and eventually, he and every one of his men made it safely back to shore. From that day on, Newton committed his life to Christ. The former slave trader became one of the biggest abolitionists of the century. He penned the poignant lyrics to perhaps the most well-known hymn in the entire canon of faith to simply tell the story of his own conversion experience.

Hymns are rich in history. These stories prove it. They remind us that life has always been hard, but God has always been good. Hymns sing of His faithfulness throughout generations. They point to a God who hasn’t changed. May we learn to see our own stories in the hymns written long ago that we still sing today.