In Anne Steele’s life, the rain was falling.  She longed for the sun to warm her days, but often she was given no respite from pain and loneliness.  She felt out of control.  And the gracious, merciful Father she saw in the Scriptures picked her up, and held her, and it calmed her down. 

Over and over again in Scripture, we see God referred to as “the Father,” or “our Father.” Now, God is not seen with our eyes, or hugged with our arms, like earthly fathers.  He is spirit.  But references to Him as “Father God” say something profound about His nature, and about our need.  It means that God cares for us, He knows what we need, and He loves us.  He made us, and we bear His image.  These references also imply that we are like children.  We depend on Him for the things we need, physically, emotionally, psychologically.  And also, that we tend to be anxious about these needs, because we do not know what lies ahead.  We worry and freak out over where our needs will be met tomorrow, instead of resting in the fact that they are being met today.  There are so many things we can neither see, nor understand.  It makes us afraid and neurotic.  And that means we need an advocate.  Someone who we know is stronger, and wiser than we are, and who will work tirelessly on our behalf because we are valuable to them.  It will calm us down.  It works the same as when my son is crying, heartbroken because it’s raining and he can’t go outside and play. I pick him up, rest his head on my shoulder, and he calms down.  He literally doesn’t understand that it will actually stop raining in the near future.  He feels out of control and needs reassurance that it’s all going to be OK.  So it is between us and God.

Anne Steele was a hymn writer who understood this need well.  Her poetry tends to focus on this reassuring God because in her life, all around seemed uncertain.  She was an English Baptist hymn writer who lived during the 18th century.  At the age of 3, she lost her mother.  Then at the age of 19, a debilitating hip injury rendered her an invalid for most of her life.  Then at age 21, her fiance, Robert Elscourt, drowned while bathing in a river just one day before their wedding.  She was bedridden for the last 9 years of her life.  Her time on this earth was tragic in many ways.  Being so well acquainted with her own need, she leaned heavily on the promises of God, her Heavenly Father, for solace and reassurance.

Here is a hymn of hers called “My God, My Father, Blissful Name!”  She understands that her fears and uncertainties are too big for her to handle.  So she invokes a Loving Father for comfort and patience.

My God, my Father, blissful Name!
O may I call Thee mine?
May I, with sweet assurance, claim
A portion so divine?

This only can my fears control,
And bid my sorrows fly:
What harm can ever reach my soul,
Beneath my Father’s eye?

Whate’er Thy providence denies,
I calmly would resign;
For Thou art just, and good, and wise;
O bend my will to Thine.

Whate’er Thy sacred will ordains,
O give me strength to bear;
And let me know my Father reigns,
And trust His tender care.

If pain and sickness rend this frame,
And life almost depart,
Is not Thy mercy still the same,
To cheer my drooping heart?

My God, my Father! be Thy Name
My solace and my stay;
O wilt Thou seal my humble claim,
And drive my fears away?

In Anne Steele’s life, the rain was falling.  She longed for the sun to warm her days, but often she was given no respite from pain and loneliness.  She felt out of control.  And the gracious, merciful Father she saw in the Scriptures picked her up, and held her, and it calmed her down.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, it is incredibly difficult to comprehend knowing God in this way.  It is much more comfortable and manageable for me to think of God as distant and aloof.  And maybe it was that way for Anne Steele as well.  As her hymns illustrate, It is so very important that we say (and sing!) truths like this to ourselves often.  We all need reminding that “[no] harm can ever reach [our] soul[s], beneath [our] Father’s eye.”  He knows what we need.  And He loves us!
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.  -Psalm 103:12-13

For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  -Matthew 6:8

James Parker is a staff member of Southwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Huntsville, Ala. This article appeared in the Southwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) newsletter and is used with permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Listen to a rendition of this hymn here.