Hymn #8

It seems that I exhausted all my writing energy last week! Maybe it's a good day for a hymn. My hymn newsletter today highlights "Take my Life, and Let it be."

My brightest memory of this hymn is actually associated with "Psalty, the singing songbook." I used to listen to some of his albums. There was one called "Psalty's Hymnological Adventure Through Time." You guessed it, Psalty, the big blue human hymnbook, gets on a time machine. Due to the machine breaking down periodically, Psalty visits different hymn writers through the ages, including David the shepherd boy, Solomon in his temple, John Newton, and Fanny Crosby. Then Psalty visits his own childhood and sees himself as a "booklet." He describes "Take my Life, and Let it be" as a hymn that was very formative to his early faith. Then adult Psalty and child Psalty sing a duet. It's a cool idea. Maybe if I ever have a time machine, I'll do the same. It would be fun to sing a duet with my childhood self.

Anyway, here are the words:


Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless 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 power 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.

I discovered that there are a lot of different melodies that accompany these lyrics, but I think the most familiar one is Hendon. And that melody is also associated with a hymn called "Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know," which also has good lyrics. You can listen at cyberhymnal.org, and probably at other sites as well.