Hymn: “I Need Thee Every Hour” – Annie S. Hawks (1835-1918)
Tune:
NEED
The
people who research those sorts of things say that there are over 3,500
promises of God in the Bible. In the New International Version, the word “promise”
occurs 69 times… and not once in the Gospels. I found THAT interesting, don’t
you?
I’m
not sure how many promises I would find if I read through the whole of
Scripture notating everything that I consider to be a promise of God to his people;
I’d be even more confused if I tried to narrow that down to the promises that
apply to ME!
I
don’t need to do that, however, to know that the Word of God is filled with
promises and that he has stood behind (or will yet stand behind) every one he
has made. Given my personal understanding of Jehovah God, he wouldn’t ‘waste
his breath’ on any promise if it were not significant… important… or as this
hymn-line says rich.
I
looked up the word ‘rich’ in Webster’s, and found a lot of synonyms which apply
to the promises of God: abundant, of high value or quality, well-supplied,
magnificently impressive, highly productive, full of nutrients, pure. Annie
Hawks may not have turned to Webster when she wrote this text, but having dissected
the word, I think she selected the perfect word to describe the promises and
blessings of God.
Fulfill
means to complete or carry out. I’ve always thought of it as being filled-full… to the point of
overflowing. In this case, I think that applies and makes the prayer-line even
more powerful. I guess I want to not only be standing on the promises; I want to be drowning in them!
Simply
put, may this be our prayer today: Let
your rich promises be realized in my life. Amen.
P.
S. – As is the case in so many hymns, this hymn-line is tucked into stanza
three – the one we too often skip. In fact, I couldn’t find an online recording
that included it! As usual, the third stanza has the truth that has been stolen
from those of us who worship corporately. Let’s add a new commandment for worship-planners:
“Thou shalt not steal a stanza from any hymn that thou shalt sing with thy thinking
congregants, especially the third.”
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