Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Safe in the hands of God’ by Michael Perry. The suggested tune is a Scottish one, ‘Bunillidh’, but John wrote his own.
It’s a setting of Psalm 27, one of the more positive psalms, and the first line of which, “The Lord is my light” (in Latin) is well known to any Oxford student as the University motto (see image above). Michael Perry rearranges the lines so that doesn’t appear at the start of this hymn. The themes of psalm and hymn are that God lights our path and acts as our salvation if we trust him and follow in his way.
‘Salvation’ here doesn’t mean particularly having our sins forgiven and becoming part of the Christian church, which is the more common Christian use of the term. In the sense used here, it refers more to offering protection, saving us from the harm caused by evil in ourselves or from other people, or making whole (the Latin ‘salus’ can also mean ‘health’).
Like “Safe in the shadow of the Lord” (from Psalm 91 which comes a couple of pages later, and which we will be singing next week), this hymn appears in “Psalm Praise” – there with a tune by Norman Warren; but unlike the Ps 91 one it didn’t appear in Hymns for Today’s Church. I guess the difference in memorability is obvious: the latter has its strong repeating line in the middle, and a tune (also by Norman Warren) which works with the words and captures the imagination. The words of this hymn, although all good and true, don’t really have any stand-out features that make them particularly stick in the mind; and although they do follow Psalm 27, the effect doesn’t immediately sound so much like the Psalm that it rings immediate bells. Perhaps I have been spoiled by an anthem version of the Psalm which we used to sing many years ago where I was in the church choir?
I didn’t think it was particularly well served by either of the suggested tunes (the Psalm Praise one by Norman Warren, or this one): the Norman Warren one catches the rhythm better, but neither have a memorable feel. So that’s why I wrote one – to see if I could capture it better. Let the listener judge.