I bring to Thee my heart to fill;
I feel how weak I am, but still
To Thee for help I call.
In joy or grief, to live or die,
For Earth or Heaven, this is my cry:
Be Thou my all in all.
Christ is all, yes, all in all;
My Christ is all in all.
Christ is all, yes, all in all;
My Christ is all in all.
Around me in the world I see
No joy that turns my soul from Thee;
Its honours fade and fall;
But with Thee, though I mount the cross,
I count it gain to suffer loss,
For Thou art all in all.
I’ve little strength to call my own,
And what I’ve done, before Thy throne
I here confess, is small;
But on Thy strength, O God, I lean,
And through the blood that makes me clean,
Thou art my all in all.
No tempest can my courage shake,
My love from Thee no pain can take,
No fear my heart appall;
And where I cannot see I’ll trust,
For then I know Thou surely must
Be still my all in all.
Rather than give biographical information on Herbert Booth, this song’s author, who has been featured three times previously on this blog, we will consider a moving story by well-known contemporary musician, Bill Himes – a composer and the retired Bandmaster of the Salvation Army’s Chicago Staff Band. Bill is also a euphonium soloist and recently played at Oshawa Temple My Christ Is All in All, a solo he wrote at the age of nineteen. He told a moving story about an occasion when he was much younger and was a guest soloist in Australia. There he met the man who had been playing the solo as a stand-in with the band until Bill arrived from the United States. The other gentleman had found a deep connection with the words of the fourth verse: “And where I cannot see, I’ll trust…” because his wife was at that time dying of cancer. Bill Himes recounted that this made a strong impact on him as a young married man – but little did he know that some years later he would be in the same position: his wife also had cancer and went to be with the Lord at the age of forty-two. Bill was again drawn to the words quoted above. In his recent devotional talk he emphasized that Christ is indeed everything to him and is in everything for each of us – in the good days and the bad; Christ weeps with us and laughs with us. May we all draw closer to this Christ and allow Him to be our “all in all”, so that we can confidently trust Him in every circumstance.
Be blessed as you listen to the video via the given link.
