Sabbath Sentiments

Today Dave and i taught a new song to our congregation. It is a beautiful rendering of a prayer from the book Valley of Vision to one of my favorite English folk tunes (I know it by the name Lazarus and Dives, and R. Vaughn Williams has a lovely arrnagement of it, too). The lyrics are below. You may hear the composer sing it here. It encourages my soul, and I hope it will yours, Gentle Reader.

I Once Was Ignorant of Grace
I once was ignorant of grace
Though living in its light;
The things of earth held my embrace
And captured all my sight.
Though I was blind and dead in sin
In love You called to me
And gave my heart new life within,
New eyes Your grace to see.

The Spirit then revealed to me
My heart was fully tinged
With strife and boundless enmity
That soon would be avenged.
But then I saw a God of grace
So eager to forgive
He let His Son die in my place
That in Him I might live.

My heart was changed – I then admired
The One I caused such loss
For all that Justice had required
Was finished on the cross.
The Savior then became to me
My joy and all-in-all
And now into eternity
Will never let me fall.

My soul must overflow in song
Each time I call to mind
That to my Jesus I belong
When judgment I should find.
O grant that I might always weep
Because of mercy shown
To one whose treason runs so deep
Yet now is called Your own.