Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed.
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.
Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears thy way;
Wait thou His time; so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day.
Still heavy is thy heart?
Still sinks thy spirit down?
Cast off the world, let fear depart
Bid every care begone.
Thou seest our weakness, Lord;
Our hearts are known to Thee;
O lift Thou up the sinking hand,
Confirm the feeble knee!
Let us in life, in death,
Thy steadfast truth declare,
And publish with our latest breath
Thy love and guardian care.
About the writer: Paul Gerhardt, a distinguished Lutheran minister, and, next to Luther, the most popular hymn-writer of Germany, was born in Saxony in 1607. He studied at the University of Wittenberg and later became a tutor in the family of his sponsor Andreas Barthold; whose daughter he later married in 1655. In the meantime he had begun to preach and was ordained as chief pastor at Mittenwalde, near Berlin. Several of his hymns were published in 1653 in the Berlin Hymn Book. In 1669 he was appointed archdeacon of Lubben in Saxony where he died in 1676.
Key Verse: I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me, freeing me from all my fears. –Psalm 34:4