This afternoon I attended a baptism at our church for an 8 year old girl. I brought Emily and bed-head Bradley (I forgot to comb his hair before we left) with me. For the opening hymn we sang hymn #116 from our church's hymnbook titled, "Come, Follow Me." It's a nice hymn. It's one of those that we commonly sing because of its generic lyrics. (Are they called lyrics in a hymn?) Anway, I'm always afraid that visitors might get confused when we sing verse 3. The words are:
Is it enough alone to know
That we must follow him below,
While traveling through this vale of tears?
No, this extends to holier spheres.
I could see a skeptical visitor who might have missed the first verse, sing the second line of the above verse and say, "Aha! I knew it! Mormons do worship the devil!"
So I want to clarify when we sing the second line of the third verse, "That we must follow him below," we are NOT referring to Satan. It simply means that we are following Him (above in Heaven) from below (on Earth.) Make sense? Phew! I just wanted to be sure that was clear.
Oh yes, and "Him" = Our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now I'll leave you with the first verse:
"Come, follow me," the Savior said,
Then let us in his footsteps tread,
For thus alone can we be one
With God's own loved, begotten Son.
Amen!
(That's not actually part of the hymn. That's just me saying Amen.)
Thanks for the clarification, though that didn't cross my mind at all. "This vale of tears" clearly refers to earth. And, even if "must follow him below" did make me think at first of hell (because I hadn't read the next line yet), I thought it might refer to the Harrowing of Hell, when after Jesus's crucifixion he went down to hell to retrieve the keys of death before resurrecting. It would be odd if we had to go, too, but the next line clears it up.
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