I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the old hymns.
Today’s song is O Perfect Love.
It’s associated with weddings. In fact, it was written for a private family wedding. The bride liked the tune Strength and Stay, but that hymn was associated more with growing old, so her sister, Dorothy Frances Gurney, wrote new lyrics for the tune. I like the tune Strength and Stay too. I first heard it on a hymns tape that I purchased in Killarney back in 1981. But on YouTube, most instances use the Sandringham tune.
The hymn itself is about the love of God. And how we should look to him to help and inspire us in our human relationships.
1 O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,
lowly we kneel in prayer before thy throne,
that theirs may be the love which knows no ending,
whom thou in sacred vow dost join in one.
2 O perfect Life, be thou their full assurance
of tender charity and steadfast faith,
of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,
with childlike trust that fears no pain or death.
3 Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow;
grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife;
grant them the vision of the glorious morrow
that will reveal eternal love and life.
When couples think of “for better or for worse”, they probably think of the “worse” as external trials. But, the person that you married might end up being the biggest trial of all 😀. But if God is patient with us, we should try to be patient with one another. I try not to be judgmental towards people who end up divorced. But I would think that most people really want to make things work, if at all possible. And we look to God to help us.
I think of the Apostle Paul and how he used the love of Jesus to inspire the church at Philippi to love and serve one another:
Philippians 2:5-11
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The hymn still seems quite popular around the world:
Hibernia Gospel 