Sunday's Hymn: So Send I You

Today’s hymn is for Rosemary Schaumburg. (If you have a hymn you would like to see featured here as a Sunday Hymn, just let me know. I’ll see what I can do.)

There are two sets of words for this hymn, both written by Canadian hymn writer Margaret Clarkson. Here is the story behind the two versions of the lyrics in 101 Hymn Stories. 

Words as first written:

So send I you to labor unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing-
So send I you to toil for Me alone.

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken,
O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,
To bear the burdens of a world aweary-
So send I you to suffer for My sake.

So send I you to loneliness and longing,
With heart ahung’ring for the loved and known,
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one-
So send I you to know My love alone.

So send I you to leave your life’s ambition,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labor long, and love where men revile you-
So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend, tho’ it be blood, to spend and spare not-
So send I you to taste of Calvary.

Second set of words done years later:

So send I you—by grace made strong to triumph
O’er hosts of hell, o’er darkness, death and sin,
My name to bear and in that name to conquer
So send I you, My victory to win.

So send I you—to take to souls in bondage
The Word of Truth that sets the captive free,
To break the bonds of sin, to loose death’s fetters
So send I you, to bring the lost to me.

So send I you—My strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, My perfect peace in pain,
To prove my pow’r, My grace, My promised presence
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.

So send I you—to bear My cross with patience,
And then one day with joy to lay it down,
To hear My voice, “Well done, My faithful servant
Come share My throne, My kingdom and My crown!”

I had to go old style for a You Tube video using the older words.

This one, like most of the recordings of this song, uses the newer words.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Arise My Soul Arise at By Grace Alone
• As the Deer Pants for the Water at Gospel Grace
• Sweet Feast of Love Divine at The Happy Wonderer
• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name (hymn story) at Challies.com
• Sunday Hymnist at Theology for Girls
• Voices from the Past #14 at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 14, 2013 at The Thirsty Theologian
• You Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Our Wish for Our Children

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Comments

[rosemary]

Thanks, Rebecca. We often sang the first version of this song in Bible College chapel so many years ago, most of the time with tears rolling down my cheeks. Having read about so many who had given their lives for the Gospel, I did not take the words lightlt. I still don't. It was good to be reminded of them in Dr. Carson's message yesterday.

[Rebecca]

I think I like the first set of words best

[Frank Kagawa]

As a young man of 22 (50 years ago), this song (the old lyrics) was used by God to touch my heart in order that I might understand what it meant to follow Him (that is, that I had to turn away from my personal ambition and desires to do as He desired). As a result, it played a part in changing the focus of my life. I consequently went on an almost 2 1/2 year mission journey where God continued to work deeply in my life as I reached out to others.
I returned to the secular life in my chosen profession, but with a new focus to serving Christ wherever I was. Those old lyrics still stir me.

But now as I am in the winter period of my life, and look back at what walking with God has brought into my life, those newer lyrics are also very true as I see what He has done in revealing more of Himself to me through our walk together.

Thank you for sharing both sets of lyrics.

In His service,
Frank

[Rebecca Stark]

Thanks for the eloquent comment, Frank.

[Random Visitor]

Better version of the "old style":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqBi7srlHk4