Hymn
My Help and My Hope
Words: Ryan Daniel Cornett
Music: Ryan Daniel Cornett
Tune: LYDIA KATHERINE
Meter: 10.10.10.10.D.
Stanza 1
My help and my hope, beyond me yet near,
To this bruised reed come incline now Your ear;
How brief are the days You filled up for me,
Poured out like water, a drop in the sea.
Yet my voice You hear, my cry You attend,
Your fresh mercies bloom each morn without end;
What gardens of joy! What fountains of peace!
Your aid shall not fail, Your grace never cease.
Stanza 2
O Salvation, rise! My Ark on the wave
When floods of sin would sink me to the grave;
The darkness draws near, the clouds hasten night;
May my eyes feast upon Your dawning light.
If not for the Vine, felled that I be whole
The thorn of the curse would cut through my soul;
What favor abounds! What riches supplied
From storehouses grand, by arms open wide.
Stanza 3
In once barren ground Your Spirit took root;
May this branch bow, heavy laden with fruit;
Now grafted to grow, come prune me to bear;
In Christ abiding, upheld by Your care.
To stranger and kin will I testify
Till unto the fields of Glory I fly,
That You hear and have regarded my plea;
My help and my hope, You ever will be.
About the song
A prayer for enduring mercy, salvation, spiritual fruitfulness, and faithful witness.
My Help and My Hope was born out of meditation on the Psalms, where the infinite majesty of God and His intimate care for the lowly are expressed. The juxtaposition of human frailty and divine nearness runs throughout the text: we are but a bruised reed, a flower quickly fading; yet He hears, provides, and upholds.
The imagery draws from Scripture: mankind as withering grass, Christ as the Vine, the Spirit planting life in barren ground. Less immediately obvious is the image of Jesus as our Ark as He alone bears us safely through judgment. The hymn invites worshipers to see the lowliness of humanity not as despair, but as contrast to the glorious heights to which Christ lifts His own.
Though the structure and ideas were long in place, the poetic imagery took years of refinement. Funnily enough, the final tune came not from the piano or organ, but from a melody I composed on an open-back banjo!
Themes
Scripture references
Psalm 103:15-17; Lamentations 3:22-23; Isaiah 58:11; Psalm 32:6-7; 1 Peter 3:20-21; John 15:1-5; Isaiah 35:1-2; John 15:2-5; Psalm 66:16