by John Fischer, King David, Frederick Lehman, and Dave Lambert

In the process of researching what is meant by, “Take delight in the Lord,” I ran across the lyrics of one of my favorite hymns, “The love of God.”  If not my favorite hymn, certainly, my favorite verse from a hymn:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

(Chorus)

Oh love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure—

The saints’ and angels’ song.

As the story goes, the author of this hymn, Frederick Martin Lehman (1868-1953), had two verses and the chorus of this song written, but for some reason couldn’t settle on a third verse until he found these lyrics written in a poem on a card he was using as a bookmark. With the poem was the story that it had been found 200 years earlier scrawled on the wall of a prison cell, and someone had written it down for posterity before painting over it. A strange way to come up with the last verse, but what a verse! It’s an 8-line metaphor that builds with incredible emotion as it unfolds beautifully within the melody. Apparently it fit perfectly within the structure of his hymn and he didn’t have to change anything.

I trust this hymn helps you to take delight in the love of God. I have included a link to a YouTube version of the hymn for your own benefit.

And along with that, I am including another story from one of our MemberPartners, Dave Lambert. His reflections bear a resemblance to the verse on the cell wall in that they are random revelations scrawled on the prison walls of this earthly existence. This happens to all of us — glorious moments when God’s truth breaks in on our reality.

This is tough. I don’t keep a diary. Much of my faith has been more about things along the way, like what writers write, or singers at concerts convey, or as the Spirit brings something to light. But trying to figure out the specifics is like trying to recall what color is at the top of a stoplight. Red or green. Gosh darn, I can’t recall.

But here are a few things that stand out in my life. When I’ve connected with the Lord through a trial, like during relationship fallouts or deaths of loved ones, certain scriptures have consistently made my faith real and held me up through hard times, like, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” They have shown me that each of the children I taught, in my second grade classes, like myself, was fallen. (Proverbs was very helpful to me in the classroom.) And a line from the 1935 Les Miserables film was also helpful, “Life is to give, and not to take.”  I repeated it over and over again to my grade School classes during my time as a teacher. I hope my students will remember it the rest of their lives, and consider others more important than themselves.

John’s teaching on a single person’s identity really brought balance to my station. I was there the night he delivered it, and I never forgot it. Nor have I forgotten seeing Francis Schaeffer and a line from his film series: “When there are no absolutes in society, society becomes Absolute.”  That hit me and really was a prism by which I saw all of life and helped form a Christian worldview still with me today.

These are just samples and I’m sure with more time I could probably come up with others. But upon further thought, I’m certain that green is on the bottom of a stoplight, and it represents how God wants us to keep going through life and collecting that which is true from whatever source He chooses to reveal it.  – DL