September 20 | Moments Almanac | Home

Welcome to Moments Almanac for September 20th. There was something about the young singer that bothered William Kirkpatrick. The man had a beautiful voice. He sang at the evangelistic meetings Kirkpatrick attended. And night after night he would stand before the crowd and sing the gospel. And then he'd leave. Before the preaching began, he was gone. He knew the songs, he knew the words. He could sing about Jesus, but Kirkpatrick began to wonder if the young man actually knew Jesus. So Kirkpatrick did what hymn writers sometimes do when words aren't enough. He prayed and then he wrote. William James Kirkpatrick was born in Pennsylvania in 1838. He learned music early, but for much of his life, music wasn't a full-time occupation. He worked with his hands, including years in the furniture and carpentry business, but music kept calling him. Eventually Kirkpatrick became one of the great composers of American hymns and gospel singing. His melodies would find their way into churches around the world. If you grew up in a Baptist church with a hymnal in the Purec, you've almost certainly sang hymns like Jesus Saves, He Hideth My Soul, 'Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus, Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Some of the most familiar words in Christian hymnity have traveled on melodies associated with William Kirkpatrick. But perhaps one of the most important songs was written for an audience of one. Kirkpatrick couldn't get that young soloist off his mind, so he began writing. Now I'm coming home. The hymn was Lord, I'm coming home. At a later meeting, the young man sang Kirkpatrick's new song, but this time something had changed. He didn't leave. He stayed. He listened to the preaching. And according to the story preserved about Kirkpatrick, that night the singer responded to the gospel himself. Just think about that. A man who had been singing the invitation discovered that the invitation was for him. There is something hauntingly beautiful about that because it is possible to become so familiar with the language of faith that we forget the faith behind the language. We can sing about grace and still need grace. We can talk about forgiveness while carrying our own guilt. We can tell others how to come home while quietly realizing just how far our hearts have wandered. The gospel isn't merely something Christians proclaim to everyone else. It is the song we need to keep hearing ourselves. William Kirkpatrick kept writing year after year, hymn after hymn, until today, september twentieth, in nineteen twenty one, he was eighty three years old. That evening his wife noticed that a light in his study was still burning. Eventually she went back to check on him, and there at his desk she found her husband, William Kirkpatrick, had died, and before him was the manuscript of another hymn. The old composer had spent his final hours doing what he had spent so much of his life doing, putting faith into words and words into music. It's almost poetic, isn't it? The final picture a quiet house, a desk, an unfinished song, and one light still burning. And that's not a bad picture for a faithful life. You keep singing, you keep serving, you keep telling people that Jesus saves, and every once in a while you stop long enough to remember the song you're singing is for you too. I've wandered far away from God. Now I'm coming home. On September 20th, 1921, William J. Kirkpatrick went home. And more than a century later, the church is still singing his songs. That's Scattered Moments for September 20th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.