Take My Life and Let It Be

One of the classic commitment hymns of the church, this consecration hymn calls us to a life fully and completely surrendered to Christ. Join us as we dive into the person and the purpose found behind this beautiful hymn of the faith.

"Take My Life and Let It Be" performed by Nathan Drake of Reawaken Hymns and other hymn resources.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. Timothy Keller. This is The Bright Forever.

UNKNOWN 0:27

The Bright Forever

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello and welcome to The Bright Forever, where we discover the power and richness found within some of the greatest hymns of the faith. My name is Andy Peavyhouse, and I am your host and guide on this adventure through hymnody. So glad to be back with you all this week. We were out on spring break here in Florida, and the older I get, I will tell you, time just seems to pass faster. I don't know if you feel this way too, but it seems like it just zooms by me. This last week seemed to just fly right by. But I loved getting to spend that time with my girls and getting to just Hang out with them and have a blast. And it was really, really fun. And I'm also glad to be back here with you this week. Last time we dove into Rock of Ages by A.M. Toplety and the controversy that surrounded its writing. Something I have loved about doing this podcast has been seeing the perspective from which many of these hymns derive their amazing lyrics. We've talked about hymns that have been born out of great happiness or great sadness, sickness, sorrow, pain, beauty, triumph, and even great arguments. I don't know about you, but it shows me that God can use any and every part of our lives and experience to influence us. to change and to inspire others to know him and to follow him. If we will simply listen to his calling and surrender our own lives to him, he can use us in amazing ways. And that's one of the things I've gotten out of hearing these stories behind these hymns is these aren't crazy, amazing hero people. They're just friends. regular people, some with a lot of hardship and a lot of sadness, but God uses it to bless people for hundreds of years. Today, we are diving into one of my first favorite hymns. And I say first favorite because I say favorite all the time. So I thought I'd try something a little new. I say first favorite because it was a long time ago that I fell in love with this hymn. and began to discover what God could do through my voice where music and singing was concerned. It was quite a few more years after that I truly began to understand and I understood who God was and what he had done for me as well as his calling in my life. But this hymn has continued to remind me that though this lisping, stammering tongue may never do what others can, it can be given to God or consecrated, as this hymn states. The audio may not be perfect, but here is the young musician choir of First Baptist Brandon, Florida, from our 1990 performance of salty's hymnological adventure through time with an 11 year old me as little salty the singing songbook singing our hymn for today take my life and let it be so Oh, to sing that high again. I would love it. This hymn specifically, the third stanza, has always been what draws me back to this beautiful song. Take my voice and let me sing. Always only for my king. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee. As I said, our hymn today is Take My Life and Let It Be, written by Frances Ridley Havergal, a remarkably gifted poet, Christian, and prayerful musician. Take My Life and Let It Be is considered the most popular and the best of her hymns. In the hymns, she commits everything of hers, including her very life to God to be used for his purpose. And it's a call to us to do the same. In fact, this hymn is one of the classic hymns of Christian commitment, known as the Consecration Hymn. Frances Ridley Havergal, who, by the way, loved her middle name, Ridley, was born December 14th, 1836 in Worcestershire, England. to William and Jane Havergal. She was the last born of six children and the fourth daughter of the family. Her parents wanted to teach their children to long for their Savior and Lord. Francis's father, William, was a clergyman in the Anglican church and a church musician. He was also a noted poet and a hymn writer who authored about 100 hymns. He found great comfort in composing music for church services and other functions. He also wrote many hundreds of chants for singing the Psalms and tunes for various hymns. As a child, Frances was energetic, joyful, charming, and she loved to have fun. She was also an intelligent child. Her education started at home in England. And then she moved on to private school. She was able to read at the age of three. Frances had begun reading and memorizing the Bible by age four, eventually memorizing the Psalms, all 150, Isaiah, and most of the New Testament. At seven, she started writing in verse. with considerable skill. In 1852, she continued her education in Dusseldorf, Germany, and at Obercastle. She won scholastic honors and became proficient in modern languages, not only in French and German, but also in Greek and Hebrew. And if you're not impressed yet, she was also an accomplished musician and known for being a great singer and and brilliant pianist. She would even write some of the tunes for her hymns. Her father even wrote some of the tunes for her hymns. She was a faithful Christian all her life. And her greatest study was that of reading scripture. She read the scriptures in the morning and at night as her way of what she would say was transforming her into the image of Christ. When she was 36, she read through a book titled All for Jesus that made her reflect on the failings of her own devotion to Christ. After reading this book, she dedicated her life again to Jesus. She devoted the rest of her life to ministering to others who were either unconverted or Christians who had lost their joy, lost the joy in their faith. The story of how Take My Life came to be provides us a picture of the passion and the pleasure she found in ministering and caring for others. She once told the story behind how this hymn came to be. She said, perhaps you'll be interested to know the origin of the consecration hymn, Take My Life. I went for a little visit of five days. There were 10 persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for, some converted, but not rejoicing Christians. He, meaning God, gave me the prayer, Lord, give me all in this house. And he just did. Before I left the house, everyone had gotten a blessing. The last night of my visit, I was too happy to sleep and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration. And these little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after another till they finished with ever only offer thee. One of her lines says, take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. In 1878, just four years after writing this hymn, and a year before she passed away at the age of 42, Frances Havergal wrote a friend saying this, the Lord has shown me another little step, and of course, I have taken it with extreme delight. Take my silver and my gold. Now means shipping off all my ornaments to the church missionary house, including a jewel cabinet that is really fit for a countess, where all will be accepted and disposed of for me. Nearly 50 articles are being packed up. I don't think I've ever packed a box with such pleasure. She not only wrote the words, she lived them out. In her own words, this is a consecration hymn. This hymn is a prayer, our prayer, that articulates what each of us feels and yearns for as a follower of Christ. Even if at times we see a great chasm of disparity between the words we sing and our actual state of being. This hymn is a prayer of aspiration. It's where we aspire to be in our lives. In my own life, this song is one I must sing in hope and faith of where God is taking me. not where I always currently am, where he's leading me, where he's teaching me in my life. I'm always finding a little bit more of my flesh to give over to God. A wrong attitude here, a bit of pridefulness over there, praying, God, take my life. Take a little more. Take a little more. Make me a little bit more like you. Take my moments and my days. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee. Take myself. And I will be ever, only, all for thee.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise. Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

That was Take My Life and Let It Be performed by Nathan Drake of reawakenhems.com. Thank you as always for listening to this podcast. Please take a minute to subscribe to or to follow this podcast either through Apple or Spotify, Stitcher, Google, Amazon, all of the different platforms you can find us on. You can also find us always at www.thebrightforever.com. And we also want to hear from you. Thank you so much for joining us. at thebrightforever.com. Again, that is podcast at thebrightforever.com. We are coming super close to the end of this season. We only have a couple of episodes left and we'll end at Easter, but I have been having a blast. I hope you have been enjoying it as well. Again, thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a great week and let us close out in prayer. Father, take our moments and our days and let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take all that we are and make us more like you. Keep chipping away at that flesh that wants what we want. wants our desires and turn them so they become what you want for us. God, we love you. We praise you. We thank you for hymns like this, that we can sing aspirationally. We can sing and aspire to something. We can sing and say, this is where I want my life to be. and then prepare as you take us through the trials, the hardships, and the beauty of a journey of life lived through your son, Jesus Christ, and the moving of the Holy Spirit. We pray all this In your glorious son's name, Jesus Christ. Amen. God bless you all. Have a great week. And we'll see you back here next week. We're out.

UNKNOWN 23:12

Thank you.