Number Thirty-eight

As you might have seen, I love older hymns. This is from August 13, 2012.

Last night in our worship, Sloan Youngblood was leading singing. (To be correct, I should refer to him as Dr. Sloan Youngblood, MD!) Sometime before the sermon, Sloan announced the next hymn as #38. Immediately, my mind said Ere' You Left Your Room This Morning (Did You Think To Pray?) Of course, it wasn't. Instead it was Awesome God, a much more recent composition. But when I was a little boy, I pretty much had my church song hymnal, Great Songs Of The Church, or commonly referred to as The Blue Book, memorized. (One of my college roommates, Mike Davis, did have it completely memorized; you could give him any song number and he knew the hymn!) And to me, #38 will always be Ere You Left Your Room This Morning. It was probably my first favorite church song although that would change with the passage of time. 

Ere you left your room this morning,
Did you think to pray?
In the name of Christ our Savior,
Did you sue for loving favor,
As a shield today?

When you met with great temptation,
Did you think to pray?
By His dying love and merit,
Did you claim the Holy Spirit
As your guide and stay?

When your heart was filled with anger,
Did you think to pray?
Did you plead for grace, my brother,
That you might forgive another
Who had crossed your way?

When sore trials came upon you,
Did you think to pray?
When your soul was bowed in sorrow,
Balm of Gilead did you borrow
At the gates of day?

(Refrain)

O how praying rests the weary!
Prayer will change the night to day;
So when life seems dark and dreary,
Don’t forget to pray!

Is there any scripture quoted more in sermons about raising kids more than Proverbs 22:6? You know:
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
The longer I live, the more I see the wisdom in that nugget of wisdom literature.  And with me,  it's not relating a hymn to a number- that's just a carryover from our never missing services and always singing hymns as a family. But praying in the morning, when we're tempted, when we're angry, and when we're challenged, that's a lesson modeled by my mom and dad. If I pray as Mary Kidder, the author, urges, it's because I witnessed it every day as a child. Some of my students don't need me to be the role model of their spiritual existence; they get it home just like I did and my siblings did. But some of the youngsters in my classes have no family history to lean on as they search for God. That's where I come in and teachers/mentors all over the world come in. I don't have kids of my own but I'm not absolved of responsibility. If anything, I'm just as liable. You and I are going to give an account some day of how we spent our lives. As of last Friday with the beginning of school, I have well over one hundred new ledger sheets. That means I only have only 178 days remaining to make a difference.

To hear this wonderful hymn, copy and paste/click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSe08VDfib0

Applicable quote of the day:

 I believe that if an angel were to wing his way from earth up to Heaven, and were to say that there was one poor, ragged boy, without father or mother, with no one to care for him and teach him the way of life; and if God were to ask who among them were willing to come down to this earth and live here for fifty years and lead that one to Jesus Christ, every angel in Heaven would volunteer to go. Even Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, would say, “Let me leave my high and lofty position, and let me have the luxury of leading one soul to Jesus Christ.” There is no greater honour than to be the instrument in God’s hands of leading one person out of the kingdom of Satan into the glorious light of Heaven.
Dwight L. Moody


God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org