O God, Our Help

O God, Our Help

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come

Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home

Under the shadow of Thy throne still may we dwell secure;

Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.

 

Chorus:

O God, our help in ages past,

Our hope for years to come,

Our shelter from the stormy blast,

And our eternal home.

 

Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame,

From everlasting Thou art God, to endless years the same

A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone;

Short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun

 

(Chorus)

 

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away;

They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day

 

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,

Be Thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal home

 

Song notes:

This hymn text by Isaac Watts is based on Ps. 90, the passage that my husband and I had at our wedding. The thing that has stuck with me from the passage is once again the idea of being at home, and in fact, that God himself is our home. The song has other themes that go along with that: God is our hope, our shelter, our guide, while we are transient (in the psalm, we are “like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers,” vv. 5-6).  And yet as we find our home in an eternal God, there is hope of life eternal for us as well. Who else would we rather have as our guide than the creator in whom we find our rest, the one who is the beginning and the end?