Joyful Joyful

I had to get this down somewhere. I just REALLY love the song Joyful, Joyful.
Some of you may remember this movie (my favorite movie I am unashamed to say) Sister Act 2.
I think I have listened to this version of this song about 1000 times. God really put this song in my heart since a young age. I can't say that Lauren Hill had NOTHING to do with it. I decided to get a tattoo of the sheet music of the original version of this song. I then decided to do a little research so I didn't look like a complete fool not knowing a thing about it when someone asked me. What I found was AWESOME.

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee, center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in Thee.

Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed,
Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.

Mortals, join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began;
Father love is reigning o’er us, brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us Sunward in the triumph song of life.

Seriously, these lyrics are SO powerful. I get chills thinking about certain lines.

Words: Hen­ry J. van Dyke, 1907. Van Dyke wrote this hymn while stay­ing at the home of Har­ry A. Gar­field at Wil­liams Col­lege, Mass­a­chu­setts. It was first pub­lished in the Pres­by­ter­i­an Hymn­al in 1911. It al­so ap­peared in the Po­ems of Hen­ry van Dyke, 1911. Van Dyke wrote:

These vers­es are sim­ple ex­press­ions of com­mon Christ­ian feel­ings and de­sires in this pre­sent time—hymns of to­day that may be sung to­ge­ther by peo­ple who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of sci­ence will de­stroy re­li­gion, or any re­vo­lu­tion on earth over­throw the king­dom of hea­ven. There­fore this is a hymn of trust and joy and hope.

Music: Hymn to Joy, from the 9th Sym­pho­ny of Lud­wig van Beet­ho­ven; adapt­ed by Ed­ward Hodg­es, 1824 

Born: November 10, 1852, Ger­man­town, Penn­syl­van­ia. Died: Ap­ril 10, 1933, Prince­ton, New Jer­sey. Buried: Prince­ton, New Jers­ey.

Van Dyke at­tend­ed Prince­ton Un­i­ver­si­ty, then served as pas­tor of the Brick Pres­by­ter­i­an Church in New York City. Se­ven­teen years lat­er, he re­turned to Prince­ton as a pro­fes­sor of En­glish lit­er­a­ture. Af­ter­ward, he held a num­ber of em­i­nent posts: Amer­i­can am­bas­sa­dor to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, mod­er­a­tor of the General Assembly of the Pres­by­ter­i­an Church, Com­mand­er of the Legion of Honor, and Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Arts and Let­ters. He chaired the com­mit­tee that com­piled the Pres­by­ter­i­an Book of Com­mon Wor­ship in 1905, and helped pre­pare the re­vised in edit­ion in 1932.

Some of Van Dyke’s quotes that have been wid­ely pub­lished:

There is a loft­i­er am­bi­tion than mere­ly to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift man­kind a lit­tle high­er. 

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who re­joice, but for those who love, time is eter­ni­ty. 

Who seeks for Heav­en alone to save his soul
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wan­der far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are. 

Use the talents you pos­sess, for the woods would be ve­ry sil­ent if no birds sang ex­cept the best.

This guy seems LEGIT.
I love how he says that this song just expressed how they felt in THAT age. How much more now should we be singing songs of our generation. How much more should we be WRITING songs of our generation and our love for Jesus?

One thing is for sure. I am getting a tattoo of this sheet music, and I am going to cherish it forever. Mostly because once it is tattooed it is there forever, but I hope to be singing a joyful song to the Lord for EVER AND EVER.

This post looks like a 7th grader wrote it. Oh well, onward and upward.

April Schief

"My lips will shout with Joy when I sing praises to You" Psalm 18