William Williams wrote the words in 1745.  John Hughes wrote the music in 1907.  It’s on page 96 of our hymnal…..”Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. 

I was at the church Saturday working on some music.  The accompaniment track to my new CD arrived in the mail on Friday, so I wanted to go to the church and practice singing with it and get the full effect of hearing the BGV’s as loud as I could play it on our church system! 

After I finished practicing, I headed to the church office to pick out some music for the praise team to work on, but decided to stop at the piano first just to play a little bit.  I haven’t done that in quite a few weeks and just felt the need to sit and play for awhile.  I played a few of my songs and then decided to open the hymnal.  That’s when I saw page 96.  We don’t sing that hymn very much.  So I didn’t play it, I just started reading the words….

“Guide me, O thou Great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land.  I am weak but Thou art mighty, hold me with Thy powerful hand”.  WOW…I had to stop there.  That SO spoke to where I am right now.  I’m feeling stuck in a barren land and feelig particularly weak.  I just sat there and let the words minister to me.  And then I started humming a little tune.  It wasn’t what was written on the page at all.  The hymn is actually in 4/4 time, but what I was hearing was 3/4 time.  So I started playing.  I had to adjust some of the words to fit into this new meter, but I felt like it worked.  And I played it over and over and over.  I even went ahead and recorded the music to the piano recording system so I could save it.  Which turned out to be a good thing the next morning.  The Sunday morning worship service started and I found out I had to be the “fill in” for the morning special.  So I pushed the “play” button on the piano, walked up to the pulpit and shared the “new” old hymn.

Thinking back on Saturday afternoon at the church, I have to admit that it still freaks me out that I just sit down and do stuff like that.  People say to me, “Wow, I could never do anything like that”, and I’m thinking, yeah, me too.  It feels like an incredible blessing that I’m not sure how it arrived on my door, and I’m hoping it doesn’t leave.  And I can’t say for sure why I felt the desire to write new music for that hymn….maybe it will only minister to me.  But I know that whenever I am in that “moment”, whenever I’m writing or singing, I’m “in tune” with God on a different level.  As I sang those words “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah”…it was my prayer at that moment.  And I felt God’s assurance that He would…..even though it might mean a few more weeks in the barren land.