In church this morning, we sang Frances Havergal’s 1874 hymn, “Take My Life and Let It Be.”
The lyrics invite surrender of every part of us: our life, our moments, our hands, our feet, our voice, our money, our mind, and our love. She writes:
Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in endless praise.
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.
After church, I discover the story of why Frances wrote this beautiful hymm. According to the story told on Christianity.com, Frances wrote:
“I went for a little visit of five days. There were ten persons in the house; some were unconverted and long prayed for, some converted but not rejoicing Christians. [God] gave me the prayer, ‘Lord, give me all in this house.’ And He just did. Before I left the house, everyone had got a blessing. The last night of my visit I was too happy to sleep and passed most of the night in renewal of my consecration, and those little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after another till they finished with ‘ever only, ALL FOR THEE’!”
I love that she sees the difference between converted, but not rejoicing, Christians. I love that she asked the Lord to give her the people in the house–meaning that they would come to know Him and be blessed by her. This blessing given out to all in the house brought Frances so much happiness that she couldn’t sleep! And so she renewed her consecration to the Lord and wrote this hymn.
I loved that we sang it this morning. Read more about Frances Havergal here.