Eben-ezers

I just finished a nightly ritual.

Before Hadley goes to bed each night, there is a setlist of three mandatory songs we must sing.

The first is the Doxology, which is slightly rewritten to “praise God all creatures hear me flow.”  The Hads Authorized version.

The second song is what she calls ‘the Daddy song’, which is named such because I was singing “Everlasting God” on the way to church one morning.  I have tried many times to give credit where credit is due, but it is no use.  She is a little Dutch woman.  Once she has an idea, you would have an easier time digging to china with a spork than changing her mind.

The last song is a romantic duet that is a favorite of my wife’s called ‘Hazy’.  I have written a blog about that song before, so I will spare you the details…

Why that list of songs are so important to her is a near match to why we sing hymns and songs on Sunday mornings.

It is about remembering a relationship.

In one aspect, Hads and I sing out songs together because we can.  We do not have to, but by singing together, it cements all over again in her mind that I am her dad.  We have a special bond, and we sing a biblical parting blessing, a Brenton Brown worship song and a French romantic ballad together because we can.  In the songs, she finds comfort.

I love that.

It is also why I love hymns, because they remind me of our Dad.

Have you ever heard the stories behind some of the greatest hymns ever written?

One of my favorite hymns right now is Be still my soul.

“Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.”

It was written by Katharina von Schegel in 1752 in Germany (as if the name did not give that one away…) who was a leader in a revival movement in her home country.  She wrote the hymn to help others remember the Truth of their faith, and I love it.  Especially the first stanza, it is such a great reminder that God is for us.

Or take a hymn that is probably one of my all time favorites, ‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!”

The song was written by Louisa Stead about 1882, several years after a tragedy had shaken her family to its core.  Louisa and her husband had decided to go on a picnic with their young daughter on Long Island Sound.  After a short time, they heard the sounds of a young boy struggling to swim to shore.  Mr. Stead dove in to rescue the boy and they both drowned.  Louisa soon became destitute as a widow and through extraordinary circumstances, ended up leaving America with her daughter Lilly, and becoming missionaries to South Africa.  Her immense pain and trials have comforted so many people and my own soul so many nights.

Or take the case of Horatio Spafford.

The Spaffords were well-known in 1860s Chicago.  He was a prominent lawyer, a senior partner in a large and thriving law firm.   A series of family tragedies began in 1870 when their only son died from pneumonia at the age of four.  Spafford invested in real estate north of an expanding Chicago in the spring of 1871.  However, the Great Fire of Chicago reduced the city to ashes in October 1871, also destroying most of Spafford’s sizable investment.  Two years later, in 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday somewhere in Europe, and chose England knowing that his friend D. L. Moody would be preaching there in the fall.  He was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four children, daughters eleven-year-old Anna “Annie”, nine-year-old Margaret Lee, five-year-old Elizabeth “Bessie”, and two-year-old Tanetta.

On November 22, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Ville du Havre, their ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel and 226 people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford’s daughters.  Anna Spafford survived the tragedy.  Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Spafford with the words “Saved alone.”  Spafford then sailed to England, writing “It Is Well with My Soul” on his voyage over.

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well (it is well),
with my soul (with my soul),
It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Or take the strangest of lines in Come thou fount of every blessing where it says…

“Here I raise my Ebenezer… ”

And we all go, uhh…what?

The line comes from a scene in the Bible where the prophet Samuel, after a great victory that God had given the people, took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Eben-ezer—”the stone of help”—for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!” —1 Samuel 7:12, NLT.  It is a monument to God and His provision.  Which is a really cool idea because the song then becomes the same thing, a monument, a living testimony to the fact that God acted then in the same way He acts now.

“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.”

The songs help us to remember the relationship.

When we gather and sing (hopefully once in while) on a Sunday morning, it is so much more than ritual.  It is singing to remember and be remembered.  It is crying out together in solidarity that we fix our gaze not on what is seen…

But on Him who is unseen…