The year was 1968 and I was a new Christian; having accepted the Lord Jesus
Christ as my Savior the previous year, (and the summer after my high school
graduation). Not one to waste a great deal of time, I had enrolled at a nearby
Bible college; (which in the intervening decades metamorphosed into a Christian
liberal arts university in which I was subsequently privileged to teach).
As the student body sat in chapel one morning, whomever happened to be
charge of the service stepped forward and instructed the sound person to play a
pre-recorded song. Suddenly, the strains of an unfamiliar hymn filled the
auditorium, and a baritone voice began to sing the most poignant words,
“I traveled down a lonely road and no one
seemed to care
The burden on my weary back had bowed me to
despair,
I oft complained to Jesus how folks were
treating me
And then these words He spoke so tenderly…”
There was just something so compelling about the words of the old song;
which went beyond the rhyme, content and meter. The expressiveness and
experiential tenor of the words lent such an eloquence to the theme which he
attempted to express to his audience.
It seems to me the student body sat spellbound, as the three verses to the
hymn played themselves out. As I reflect on it now, an almost ‘holy hush’
permeated the building that morning.
As the closing notes of our unseen guest and accompanying piano echoed
across the chapel, and silence permeated the room, our college president walked
to the podium, and provided the students a bit of information to which they had
not been privy, ‘til now.
“The voice you just heard was owned by a missionary named J.W. Tucker. He
is no longer with us, but died at the hands of Maoist rebels in Africa just
four years ago.”
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. There was just
something so personally poignant having just been exposed to the song, and
having just connected with the man who sang it; and to be informed that he had
lain down his life for the Gospel of the Lord whom he had so dearly loved.
Almost half a century has come and gone since that day, and I have often
reflected on the words of that old hymn by Ira Stanphill, and its relevance to
every Christian who ever lived and moved and breathed upon this planet. And
over the course of the past few decades I have often sung it as a solo, and
never fail to relate the story behind my personal association with it.
(to be continued)
By
William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 35.
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