The Loving Shepherd

The love is patient and is kind—
It lifts me up most tenderly;
It never want shall let me find—
That Christ my Shepherd bears for me.

He boasts my dullness not against,
He heatedly me bears no ill,
But leads my soul and keeps it fenc’d
In pastures green by waters still.

Restoring me, he never lords
It o’er, nor putteth me to shame,
But leads me in what path accords
With righteousness, for his great name.

Because in vales of death and woe
Thou emptied’st self to bring me near,
When thence with thee thou bidd’st me go,
There is no evil I will fear.

I love thy rod, for ne’er ’tis brought
Against me sharply as thy foe;
I love thy staff, that’s never thought
Mine endless strayings’ sums to know.

Thou lovest not iniquity
But cleansest me from ev’ry fault;
The flesh, the world, the Enemy
Shall find no pow’r this grace to halt.

Thy truth rejoiceth me within:
‘Tis wine that cheers to overflow,
‘Tis oil that makes my face to shine,
‘Tis bread, my heart in strength to grow.

(Ps 104:15)

You bear, believe, hope, and endure
Through all my weak or sinful ways;
Thy goodness and thy mercy, sure,
Shall me pursue for all my days.

Thy love shall never fail nor fall!
O Shepherd, in thine arms thy sheep
With kindness bear unto thy hall
In steadfast love to ever keep.

—12/13/25. On 1 Corinthians 13 and Psalm 23. To “O Waly Waly.”

I first heard this tune on Todd Murray’s John Newton album Beyond Amazing Grace. He used it for “Prayers Answered by Crosses” (on the album as “These Inward Trials”). I do confess it took many, many years for this hymn not to scare me. I am good at building hopes and dreams, and the Lord is good at making me find my all in him instead.

Grace Music · 08 These Inward Trials

I am continually delighted by the way Newton just throws in “blasted my gourds” (Murray changes it to “hopes”) with supreme and utter confidence that the singer will link it to Jonah 4:7 (KJV). He doesn’t even add a reference, as he does with trickier allusions! “Would that all the Lord's people” (Num 11:29) had such Biblical literacy.

Years later, I found out the tune is from the folk song “O Waly, Waly.” Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, sings it beautifully:



I don’t remember how this hymn started out. I might have had “Prayers Answered by Crosses” stuck in my head, which happens often. I might have been meditating on 1 Corinthians 13, which I have been doing often this year. (The idea of God as patient, kind, &c. is very dear to me; the idea of him not seeking his own—and therefore seeking mine?—blows my mind. He holds himself to the same standard he holds us to, or rather, he sets our standard based on who he is.) For sure it was helped along by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s idea, I think from The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, of “God is a shepherd” as a controlling metaphor throughout Scripture.

Finally, I have a heretofore unwritten rule not to explain the text of a hymn without being asked—I saw an excerpt of an interview once with I think Martin Scorsese, or possibly David Lynch, wherein the director refused to explain a given scene because everything he wanted to say was already in the movie—under the philosophy that a hymn ought not require explanation, lest the singer sing from anything less than faithful conviction (Rom 14:23). I don't believe I've written anything disagreeable to the Christian conscience. But if it appears to move between 1 Corinthians 13 and something else entirely, that is because I utilized my September word study of that passage for much of the hymn:

Love distances wrath, is mild. Love heats not against. Love embellishes not itself, is not inflated, disgraces not, seeks not its own, is not sharp, reckons not up a wrong, rejoices not in injustice but co-rejoices with truth, everything covers, everything believes, everything hopes, everything remains through. Love never falls.

Finally, a milestone for which I'm grateful: this is my 34th post this year, making 2025 my most prolific year since 2015, and full of far more and more worthwhile stuff than I created then. It's been a real joy to have the gift of poetry reawakened in me, and I am grateful to the Lord the giver for it. To him be glory forever, amen.