(submitted by Kerry Patton)
“Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known to God.”
Philippians 4:6
Have
You Heard This Song?
I bet you
have. Like many traditional hymns, it
isn’t in frequently sung anymore, but if you’ve been in church over the last
fifteen years, you’ve most likely heard it:
What a friend we have in
Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer.
Oh, what peace we often
forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be
discouraged. Take it to the Lord in
prayer.
Can we find a friend so
faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every
weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden cumbered
with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our
refuge. Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise,
forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in
prayer.
In his arms he’ll take and
shield thee. Thou wild find a solace
there.
These words, written
by Joseph M. Scriven, 1820-1886, were originally not a hymn, but a poem. They had, perhaps been born out of two
devastating losses that he had endured.
At the age of 25, Joseph had fallen in love and was engaged to be
married to a young woman, when the day before they were to be wed, she died in
a tragic drowning. Sometime later,
Scriven was working as a teacher in Canada and had fallen in love with a
relative of one of his students. Again,
Joseph’s hopes and dreams were destroyed as this fiancé fell ill and died
before they could be married.
He had lost not one
but two fiancés to death before they could be married. About the time of the death of his second
fiancé, Eliza Roche, Scriven received word that his own mother had taken ill. Unable to return to Ireland to be with her,
he wrote a letter of encouragement to his mother and included a poem he had
written: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”
to comfort her. It was not until some 30
years later that a collection of Scriven’s poems was published, and thereafter
his poem “What a Friend…” was put to
music and became the hymn we know today.
In this context, I
better understood how drawing from his own pain and loses, Scriven desired to
extend to others the help and hope that he had experienced in Jesus…a friend
indeed in very difficult times. I think
though, I would rather the title have been “Prayer
Helps in Difficult Times” or even “Take
it to the Lord in Prayer”.
Nevertheless, while meditating upon the words of the poem/hymn, we
realize it is for us a solid encouragement for each of us to awaken to the fact
that we have a direct pipeline of communication to the power of God through
life’s most difficult times. Indeed,
what a friend we have in Jesus through prayer…so let’s get to praying, no
matter what the circumstance!
Prayer
Father God, help us always to come to you in
prayer. Hebrews 7:25 tells us that Jesus
now lives and makes intercession for us…He prays for us all the time! Stir us
up, O God to bring our every need, our every concern, our every hope for
ourselves and others, to the Lord in prayer.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
