Scripture Verse

Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Introduction

portrait
Richard W. Adams (1952–)

Words: Ri­chard W. Ad­ams, 2009.

O HEAVY BURDENED, WEARY ONE
© 2009 Richard W. Adams
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Music: Mc­Afee Cle­land B. Mc­Afee, 1903 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you have a larg­er pho­to of Mc­Afee,

portrait
Cleland B. McAfee
(1866–1944)

Background

For sev­er­al days, Cle­land Mc­Afee’s haunt­ing me­lo­dy for Near to the Heart of God had been run­ning through my head, and I be­gan to won­der if God want­ed me to put down new words for the tune.

However, noth­ing ob­vi­ous was forth­com­ing, ex­cept the vague idea of an in­vi­ta­tion hymn. Then one day, when I had a few qui­et mo­ments, I sat down with Wil­bur Kon­kel’s Hymn Stor­ies.

I stuck my fin­ger in the mid­dle of the book, and, un­ex­pect­ed­ly, it opened to the sto­ry of Near to the Heart of God. It was al­most as if God was say­ing, Now do you know what I want?

I sat down at my desk, and the words to this hymn were fin­ished in an hour.

Lyrics

O heavy bur­dened, wea­ry one,
Weighed down by sin and shame,
Come with your tired, down­trod­den soul,
Helpless, or blind and lame;
No mat­ter what op­press­es,
Come, doubt­er, taste and see,
That God alone pos­sess­es
Power to set you free.

For con­dem­na­tion does not wait,
But His for­giv­eness sweet,
If on­ly we con­fess the past,
And lay it at His feet.
He lifts the hea­vy mill­stone,
Fetters of ma­ny years,
And in the ocean casts them,
So sink­ing all our fears.

There is a rest for hum­ble souls,
In ev­er­last­ing arms,
A re­fuge from the tears and pain
And all the world’s alarms.
For God Hims­elf has spok­en:
If you would be made whole,
Christ of­fers to the brok­en
Balm for the sin-sick soul.