Author Archives: MidStreeter

How Sweet The Name of Jesus Sounds – Lor


I loved singing this hymn at six or seven at Goodwood Chapel in Leicester. We sang it again yesterday at Trinity Abingdon. It’s been about 60 years since I was that little boy beside my parents. Most of the service went over my head back then, but this song was different. I loved it then, and I still love singing it now! This time, the verse that directly addresses Jesus in his many aspects particularly struck me. It was all directed at Jesus.

O Jesus, shepherd, guardian, friend,
my Prophet, Priest, and King,
my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
accept the praise I bring.

A Prayer

Dear God, I wake in the night and cannot sleep, and my thoughts turn to You. I look out the window and see the branches swaying in the breeze. Those trees will soon have leaves. When I was young, faith was easy, a blanket wrapped around me. As I grew older, doubts came, and I was glad to let go of that belief and not have to live up to that difficult way – always falling into what I saw as sins and having to ask forgiveness and trying to live better and never managing it. Without you, I could live as I pleased. Now, after many more years, I want to find my way back. I know You are the only source of wholeness, and even though certainty escapes me, I pray, hoping to know Your presence. Thank you that hope remains and love and creativity and the qualities I think of as yours even though I may never know you quite so simply. But I don’t know what will happen today. Your will be done. Open my heart and my eyes to see the signs you leave for me. Perhaps, I will find you in the people I meet. Amen.

I am a New Creation


This song is from Songs of Praise in 1997 in Eastbourne with Dave Bilbrough and Lou Fellingham singing. Stuart Townend is on the keyboard. It is a song we sang on Sunday at my current church, based on 2 Corinthians 5, where verse 17 in the NIV says ‘ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’