LSB #783, 784 "Take My Life and Let It Be"

Biblical citations in the hymnal:  Romans 12:1-2, Romans 6:13, 1 Corinthians 6:20, 2 Corinthians 5:15

Romans 12:1-2:  "1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Romans 6:13:  "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness."

1 Corinthians 6:20:  "for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body."

2 Corinthians 5:15:  "and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."

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The text is public domain:

1 Take my life and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

2 Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love;

Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee.

3 Take my voice and let me sing

Always, only for my King;

Take my lips and let them be

Filled with messages from Thee.

4 Take my silver and my gold,

Not a mite would I withhold;

Take my intellect and use

Ev'ry pow'r as Thou shalt choose.

5 Take my will and make it Thine,

It shall be no longer mine;

Take my heart, it is Thine own,

It shall be Thy royal throne.

6 Take my love, my Lord, I pour

At Thy feet its treasure store;

Take myself, and I will be

Ever, only, all for Thee.

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All of the cited passages have a similar theme, which is summarized in the first two lines of the hymn:  "Take my life and let it be / Consecrated, Lord to Thee."  Romans 6:13 is a bit more prominent than the other texts; the hymn expands on "present... your members to God as instruments for righteousness" and provides specific examples:  "Take my hands... Take my feet..." and so on.

The lines "Take my feet and let them be / Swift and beautiful for Thee" refer to Isaiah 52:7:  "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"

"Take My Life and Let It Be"

I haven't posted my recording of it yet, but in James Bastien's Great Hymns Arranged for Organ, the text "Take My Life and Let It Be" is paired with the tune "Hendon" (this is the tune it appears with in Lutheran Service Book #784).  When I was practicing it last month, I noticed a few features in the last two phrases:

In the first verse, the text here is "Let them flow in ceaseless praise, / Let them flow in ceaseless praise."  (The "them" are "my moments and my days" from the previous line.)  In the first phrase, the words "ceaseless praise" are sung with melismas (C Bb Bb A | A G), and since the words are stretched out, there's a sense of this duration.

In the third verse, the text here, referring to "my lips" in the previous line, is "Filled with messages from Thee, / Filled with messages from Thee."  In both phrases, "messages" is sung with a melisma (D C C Bb and A Bb G F, respectively), and since there's an extra syllable, there's a sense of the abundance of being "filled."

"Take My Life and Let It Be"

Archival post from 7 September 2016

For the last couple weeks, I've been watching Worship for Shut-Ins religiously (pun intended).  One of the hymns in this week's service was "Take My Life and Let It Be," and as I listened to it, I noticed that in the final phrase there's usually a melisma that emphasizes a specific word in the text.  I referenced my hymnal and found that "Take My Life and Let It Be" is included with two melodies, "Patmos" (LSB #783) and "Hendon" (#784).  The melismas I noticed are present only when the text is sung to "Patmos."  Here's the phrase:

In the first verse, that melisma corresponds to "flow," so movement is implied musically.  In the second, it acts as musical elaboration for "beautiful" in the text.  In the third, there's an extra syllable for "messages," so the melisma further demonstrates how "my lips" (from the previous line) are "filled" with God's word.  I'm not sure if there's a clear extra-musical meaning for that melisma in the fourth or fifth verses, but in the sixth, it sort of musically underlines the "only" in "Take myself, and I will be / Ever, only, all for Thee."  It emphasizes the exclusivity of that dedication of the self to God (and also brings the First Commandment to mind).

At the bottom of the page in my hymnal, Frances R. Havergal is credited with the text and William H. Havergal with the tune ("Patmos").  I did some research, and apparently they're father and daughter.  It seems that either the text was written to the music or the music was written to the text, which is probably why those eighth notes and resulting melismas combine so well to produce these emphases.  Like I mentioned above, they aren't present when this text is sung to "Hendon" (written by Henri A. C. Malan).