I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15 NIV
One of my favorite hymns growing up was, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It has always been curious to me that while I don’t consider myself a “music person” (rarely do I listen to music when I am by myself), there have been many times when the words of hymns come floating back to me right when I need them. I am much more a person who focuses on the words of a song than the tune to which those words are set.
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is still one of my favorite hymns. I am not a fan of songs that repeat the same three or four lines over and over again. The lyrics to this song are so moving.
One of my favorite lines goes like this:
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!
What peace we often forfeit because we choose to carry the weight alone and not invite God in. Jesus is our friend, He wants to do life with us and share the load—but we shoulder the load alone if we don’t first give our heart to Him. He is standing by ready to help us! The lyrics of this song carry even more weight when we consider the trials this author faced prior to writing this song.
The author of this song, Joseph Scriven, knew well the comfort God could bring when it seemed like he was losing what mattered most to him. In about 1845, Joseph lost his fiancée; the day before their wedding she drowned in a lake. Devastated, Joseph decided to immigrate from Ireland to Canada. While in Canada, his mother wrote him of a crisis she was facing. He wrote her a poem in response and sent it to her. This poem was published anonymously and, even so, gained popularity.
In 1860 Joseph once again fell in love and planned to wed, only to have this second fiancée pass away from tuberculosis before the wedding. Joseph threw himself into ministry and charity work and spent his life helping the poor. Meanwhile, that little poem Joseph had penned continued to gain popularity. Still no one knew who had written it. A time before his death Joseph fell ill and a neighbor who was staying with him found a paper with the manuscript of “What a Friend” written on it and questioned Joseph regarding it. It became clear that Joseph had penned this now-famous poem.
Joseph knew pain. He knew what it felt like to need a friend to help him carry the load of pain. Like Job blessed the Lord despite losing everything, so Joseph could praise the friendship and comfort he found in Christ.
Joseph wrote “What a Friend” out of such great sorrow and as a poem of encouragement to his mother. How many of us could, and would, truly do the same? Do we have the faith that after losing one of those most dear to us, that we can say, what a friend we have in Jesus?
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