Lord’s Day, Vol. 5 No. 34

There’s Within My Heart a Melody

-From a Calamitous Loss of Wife and Children

Luther Bridges, a successful young evangelist, accepted an invitation to hold two weeks of revival meetings near his wife’s home in Horrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1910. His wife, whom he had met and married at Asbury College, stayed with their three boys at his in-laws while he conducted the meetings, at which many accepted Christ.

Near the end of the campaign, he received a late-night phone call. The person at the other end conveyed the tragic news that his wife’s parents; home had burned to the ground with his wife and three sons all lost in the fire. At the age of twenty-six, he was bereft of his precious family.

Stunned and heartbroken he went to the word of God for comfort and guidance. In the storm that raged over his life, God spoke to him, through the words of Psalm 91.

Psalm 91:1 “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Also, Psalm 91:2 “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” That promise of God’s word became an anchor for his soul. Like Job, he had suffered a calamitous loss, but his faith held firm.

Shortly after his tragedy he wrote and shared the song in the night that God gave to him from the deepened trust he found in Psalm 91:

 

There’s within my heart a melody

            Jesus whispers sweet and low:

Fear not, I am with thee; peace, be still

            In all of life’s ebb and flow.

 

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,

            Sweetest name I know,

Fills my every longing,

            Keeps me singing as I go.

 

All my life was wrecked by sin and strife,

            Discord filled my heart with pain;

Jesus swept across the broken strings,

            Stirred the slumbering chords again.

 

Though sometimes He leads through waters deep,

Trials fall across my way,

Though sometimes the path seems rough and steep,

            See His footprints all the way.

 

Feasting on the riches of His grace,

            Resting ‘neath His sheltering wing.

Always looking on His smiling face;

            That is why I shout and sing.

 

Have you lost something or someone precious to you? Has some treasure in your life been snatched away? Has your heart been broken by a tragic circumstance that violently intruded upon the joy of your life? If so, listen, for God has a song in the night for you.

As promised through the Psalmist, God will be your shelter and your peace. “In all of life’s ebbs and flows” God is there as Saviour and Sovereign. He will “sweep across the broken strings” and give His melody of joy to the heart that trusts in Him.

 

Yours lovingly,

Pastor Lek Aik Wee