Christ's Love Is All I Need

I shared this song a couple of Sundays ago and wanted to share more about it.

Some of you know this, some don't, but on and off over the last couple of years, I (Alan) have spent time working on retuning unknown hymns from old hymnals.  My workflow involves reading through old hymns in print, on Google Books and in Logos.  When I find one that I like, or seems like it might be a good hymn to work on, I paste it into Evernote to work on later.

I haven't really touched the Hymns Project for probably 6 months or so, but for some reason last week, sitting at the piano, I opened up the notebook in Evernote.  This hymn was the first one on my list.  I remember that I liked the verses when I pulled it into Evernote, but the chorus really felt trite.  (see Jodie's post from earlier)

I have never heard of George W Sides, and Steve Green's MIDI Hymnal in Logos was the only hymnal I found the words to this song in.  After I retuned it, I did listen to the MIDI, and it's a hokey (sorry if this hymn is near and dear to anyone...), happy go lucky 6/8 hymn.  The "I know" part seemed to be thrown in there so everyone can work on their octave leaps.

When I read "Though dark and dreary be life's way," I started in minor and worked towards a major chorus.  The "I know" became a reminder to self as I sang.  I had to significantly rewrite the third verse to make it comprehensible.  After a couple hours of work it started to come together.

As the song came together, I began to feel the Lord leading that I should share the song that Sunday morning.  I thought it was a horrible idea, as I doubted that I could make it through the song, but the Lord seemed to keep pushing.  Finally I decided that if there was extra time in the service, I would sing the song, but I knew that we were tight on time, so I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen.

Our guest preacher only preached for 35 minutes and announcements were brief....

Lyrics:

Verse 1
Though dark and dreary be life’s way
And burdens hard to bear;
There’s One whose love will never fail,
My heart shall ne’er despair.
My hope is staid in Him today
And He will safely lead;
To that sweet home beyond the sea,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Verse 2
Though trials press onev’ry side
And many snares there be;
I look in simple faith to Him,
Who calmed the stormy sea.
He is the Shepherd kind and true,
His sheep He’ll ever feed;
This cheers me on and makes me strong,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Verse 3
And when I see the storms ahead
Across the churning sea
I shall not fear to press ahead,
For at my side is He.
He bore the sting of death for me,
Has met my ev’ry need;
And so I sing the sweet refrain,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Chorus
Christ’s love is all I need each day,
I know, I know,
Christ’s precious love is all I need,
He’ll lead me safely on life’s way,
I know, I know
Christ’s precious, precious love is all I need.