hymns

Tonight our church had a hymn sing, and this brought to mind how full circle I have come on this genre of music.

When I was growing up my family listened to hymns a lot, and since I went to church regularly in traditional churches I heard my share of hymns as a kid.  As anyone who hears a lot of a specific type of music will do, there were songs that I liked and songs that I did not like.  I appreciated hymns overall, though, until I became a teen.

As I got into adolescence I grew to resent the expectation that church-goers would like the one genre of music over the others, and the attitude that many had that everything that was not a hymn was inferior (or worse, unholy).  I also got tired of the tendency of hymns to use outdated jargon, and plenty of "thees" and "thous." As such, while I did not hate hymns, I learned to strongly prefer other styles of music.

As I have grown as an adult, and especially in the past two or three years, I have come to appreciate the depth and maturity that exists in many hymns.  This is probably mostly due to the fact that I have more life experiences to appreciate a This has been in part because my understanding of Scripture and what practical Christianity really is has increased, and so some of what I thought I grasped before strikes me more seriously now.  Some of this is that I am no longer in a situation, or have recently been in a situation, where there are any expectations on what music I am going to like or what I am going to relate to.

One example of a song that I have only recently been appreciating on a doctrinal level is "Rock of Ages."  I am not Calvinist, and maybe this is one of the reasons it has taken some time to connect with me, but I feel I am only now grasping what I always claimed to believe—that I, and everyone else, truly come to God empty-handed.  I bring nothing to the equation except a reticent willingness to be changed.



An example of a song that I appreciate based on life experience in a way that I did not when I was a kid is "The Solid Rock."  Of my myriad of weaknesses, if there were one that I would pick out to say how much I underestimated the depth of it earlier in life, it is my ability to trust God.  My strength is in trusting Him, but it's something I need His help to even consider doing.



One song I am including here just because I like it is the Owl City version of "In Christ Alone."  It was written more recently than most traditional hymns, but it is essentially a hymn.  It is also every bit as meaningful as the other hymns I have been contemplating lately.



There are certainly some hymns I still do not enjoy, and probably never will.  However, I am getting to the point in my life where a good number of songs that I may have overlooked ten or twenty years ago can profoundly touch me.  I must be getting old.