My Favorite Hymns and WHY

I love hymns. I have most of our hymn book memorized. Or at least half of it. For a lot of the songs, I don't need to open the book, but I do anyways for hospitality sake. I remember when I was in high school, my pastor would tell us to leave our song books out, even if we knew the songs, because if anyone was new that day, they wouldn't feel weird to need using the book. Made sense to me. So, I hold the book anyways.

Sometimes people think that young adults don't like hymns. That's even not true. A lot, if not most, of my churchy friends my age also love hymns. 

Here are my top ten twelve (this is shortest list I could make) and WHY:

12. Go My Children, With My Blessing

We used to sing this as a closing hymn a lot at my church growing up. I especially like the older version of this hymn that has a verse 4 that's similar to the benediction we use most weeks.

11. I Love to Tell the Story

I have a complicated relationship with this song. I'm not always a fan of songs/hymns that presume that everyone feels the same way- like in this hymn, sometimes it's hard to love telling the story and definitely there will be people in the community that feel like they are lying as they sing these words. BUT, I also love this song, because of verse three: I love to tell the story to those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest; and when in scenes of glory, I'll sing the new, new song. I'll sing the old, old story, that I have loved so long." I feel called to tell the "story of Jesus and his love" to the people who know it best. We are all called to different things. I feel called to remind people that this love is for them, over and over and over again, because it's easy to forget. 

10. This is My Song

This is the only patriotic hymn that I like. The song acknowledges that God loves the WORLD and at the same time celebrates where we get to live, wherever that may be. 

9. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

I'm actually pretty sick of this song. I played it too many times. It's still on the list though because we sang it at our wedding and because of the end of the last verse: "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." I love that line because that's what I think every person of faith feels like- we can just feel that we are prone to walk away, so we pray that God would just seal our hearts in those moments of trust and faithfulness before we do.

8. Amazing Grace

Can you imagine 10,000 years and having no less days to sing God's praise? I can't! So, I love thinking about it anyways. Also, so many of the verses make me teary. Not even because of funerals, just because the words are so beautiful. 

7. How Great Thou Art

The words and music are beautiful and powerful. If you ever get in a room of Lutherans and hear them belt this song, you will cry and convert immediately (if you're not already a Lutheran).

6. We Are Called

I also sang this song too much, so I'm a little sick of it, but I just really love some of the words. Especially "Come, live in the light" and the last verse is my prayer for life: "Sing! Sing a new song! Sing of that great day when all will be one! God will reign and we'll walk with each other as sisters and brothers united in love!" So good. 

5. Christ Be Our Light

Look it up. You'll know why it's on this list.

4. In the Bleak Midwinter

This is my new fav. Christmas hymn. Verse one paints a picture of a cold, bleak, and desolate, and COLD place, and that's the place where Christ comes. The second verse is really beautiful: "Heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain. Heaven and earth will fade away when he comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter, a stable would suffice, the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ." He's so awesome and wonderful that even HEAVEN cannot hold him, nor EARTH sustain, and then the place that Christ is born is in a barn, this insignificant and humble place. The third verse is just precious. 

3. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

I first sang this song in our high school church choir and then I sang it as a solo at the last church I worked at. The second verse is gruesome, beautiful, and poetic: "See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet? Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

2. Lord of All Hopefulness

We sang this song at our wedding too! It has the same tune as "Be Thou My Vision" (which is also my jam), but the words follow the different times of the day and how God is a part of all of it. We picked it for our wedding, because it was like a blessing that God would be with us through all of our life together, even the days that are just regular. 

1. Gather Us In

This is my fav hymn of all the hymns. First, I love Marty Haugen and everything he's ever composed. I love that God would gather us in, all of us- the rich, the haughty, the blind, the lame, the old, the young, the lost, the forsaken, the proud, the strong, all of us. I love the overall hopefulness that God's light is streaming into our lives right now. The last verse is my favorite: "Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away- here in this place the new light is shining, now is the kingdom and now is the day." We can glimpse God's work in the world right now, it's right now, it's right here. 

I also have like a hundred other favorite hymns. Come and have a hymn sing with me any day. I will always love that.

Bonus points for anyone who counts how many times I wrote, "beautiful." I'm not sure what the points will be for, and I won't be able to tell you if you are right, because I'm not going to count them.

ALSO, look up all of these hymns! AND TELL ME YOUR FAVORITES! I'm not yelling, just excited.