Infants in Hymns – Part 1
Align had the opportunity to participate in a local church’s Missions Conference last weekend. During the conference’s Sunday morning worship service, we sang the hymn “Jesus Shall Reign” by Isaac Watts.
I learned that song at church as a little girl. Singing it now, as a grown-up working for a pregnancy center ministry – it was the words in verse 3 that especially jumped out at me. Verse 3 says:
“People and realms of every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song,
and infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name.”
Isn’t that a beautiful thought… the sound of a baby’s voice as one of their first ways of blessing Jesus? He is the One they have been made through, and He is the One they have been made for (See Colossians 1:16).
It’s always a joy to walk into one of our centers and hear a baby crying. It could be the sound of a baby whose parents planned to have her from the beginning and are taking parenting classes with us just to brush up on their mother and fatherhood skills.
Or it could be the sound of a baby whose mom initially thought about having an abortion, but encountered truth and love of Jesus at Align, changed her mind, had her baby and is parenting her child.
Whatever the case, I hope that verse inspires us to think of a baby’s cry as one of his or her earliest proclamations of how wonderful Jesus is!