"God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength"

My family and I attended a wonderful church for about 12 years. It was imperfect, as anything instituted by man is wont to be, yet it was a place where I always felt like I truly worshipped the living and holy God on Sunday morning. We were a close knit group of caring people, we were challenged and encouraged by the weekly preaching, we took communion together each Sunday, we used liturgy gathered from years of church history, and we sang great hymns of the faith. Painfully small, our little church made the difficult decision to disband at the end of July of this year. In the ensuing months, my family and I have been searching for a new church home, and have not met with any success. We have found other churches to be lacking in so many criteria which are important to us. We suspected we would have to make some compromises, but little did we know the extent to which we would have to change our standards.

I love singing great hymns. Of the many things I miss about the Sunday worship to which I became accustomed, this one is weighing quite heavily on my heart. I miss the wonderful words, the melodies (and harmonies), having text AND music to read, and holding the hymnal in my hand. I miss the purposeful selection of hymns, based upon the church calendar and the Bible texts for the week. There doesn't appear to be much thought put into the decisions about what is sung each Sunday in many of the churches we have visited. And then, what IS sung, doesn't have any deep meaning to it.

I have an old Psalter Hymnal, published in 1959 by the Christian Reformed Church. More than half of it contains Psalms set to music. I searched it this afternoon, looking for hymns written early enough to have been in existence when the Pilgrims were living. With the Thanksgiving holiday on the immediate horizon, I wanted to sing some Pilgrim-era psalms with my children during school this week. Some of the tunes in this Psalter come from the Genevan Psalter of 1562, which was written under the guidance of John Calvin, and it was these sixteenth century hymns to which I was drawn.

A hymn written by Martin Luther (1483-1546) caught my eye. "God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength" is based upon Psalm 46, and sung to the tune I know of as "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." If you know the tune, try singing this hymn. The words are a comfort to me as I traverse this wilderness time of my life.

God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength

God is our refuge and our strength, A Helper ever near us;
We will not fear though earth be moved, For God is nigh to cheer us.
Although the mountains quake, And earth's foundations shake,
Though angry billows roar, And break against the shore,
Our mighty God will hear us.

God's city is forever blest, With living waters welling;
Since God is there she stands unmoved, 'Mid tumults round her swelling;
God speaks and all is peace, From war the nations cease;
The Lord of hosts is nigh, Our fathers' God Most High
Is our eternal dwelling.

Behold what God has done on earth; His wrath brings desolation,
His grace, commanding wars to cease, Brings peace to every nation;
Be still, for He is Lord, By all the earth adored;
The Lord of hosts is nigh, Our fathers' God Most High
Is our strong habitation.