Hymn: I Asked The Lord That I Might Grow
If you only know one hymn, it’s probably Amazing Grace, and for good reason: you would be hard-pressed to find a more succinct, simple, and beautiful expression of God’s grace. Newton wrote a masterpiece. What you may not know is that John Newton wrote more than one masterpiece.
Today I want to share with you his song “I Asked The Lord That I Might Grow” (This was back when titles were usually just the first line of the song). This is a beautiful song about the pain we experience when God is making us more like Jesus. It starts with the author asking God to grow him. The author is quickly taken to a place he didn’t anticipate: a place of pain and suffering. I don’t want to explain away the song because the lyrics speak for themselves, but there’s one line I want to bring to your attention that might be confusing on first read.
In the 5th verse, modern hymnals read “ 5 Yea more, with his own hand he seemed intent to aggravate my woe, crossed all the fair designs I schemed, humbled my heart, and laid me low. “ This was not the original lyric. What John Newton originally wrote was “crossed all the fair designs I schemed, Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.” What in the world does that mean?
At the end of the book of Jonah, Jonah makes a trip to the outside of the city of Nineveh to watch. God makes a plant to grow up from the ground to shade Jonah. Later, God destroys that plant and so destroys his protection from the harsh desert conditions around him. In that moment, God was growing Jonah. God took away what Jonah was relying on to show him that he should not rely on anything but God. God hurt Jonah to save him from greater harm.
John Newton would’ve been reading the King James Version of the Bible. Jonah 4:6-7 in the KJV reads “And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.”
When Newton wrote that verse, he was thinking of the Story of Jonah, and the reality that God sometimes takes away things that we boast in to show us just how foolish boasting in those things are. Sometimes, God hurts us to save us from greater harm.
If you want to know more about the story of Jonah, you can listen to our sermon series on the book here.
1. I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.
2. ’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.
3. I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
4. Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
5. Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
6. “Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried,
“Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?”
“’Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.
7. “These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”