Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Love of God

A couple of Sundays ago, we sang this hymn at church that I had never before sang...and it was incredible. I hope you'll read the words slowly and carefully and try to take in the description of The Love of God. If you click on this link, it will let you listen to the song (it's actually a youtube video, but you can hear Mercy Me's version).

The Love of God

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When hoary time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;

Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
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.

I can't believe I haven't heard this song before! It made me want to research it a little bit and find out more about it. Frederick M. Lehman wrote this son in 1917 in Pasadena, California. So, from what I can find, they found the last stanza of the poem written on the walls of an insane asylum, but they are actually wrods from an old Jewish poem. Lehman says, "One day, dur­ing short in­ter­vals of in­at­ten­tion to our work, we picked up a scrap of pa­per and, seat­ed up­on an emp­ty le­mon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pen­cil, add­ed the (first) two stan­zas and chor­us of the song."

Pretty amazing the gift that God gives poeple to write....the love God is so amazing and I can't wait until we can fully know it in heaven one day, together.

No comments: