July 30, 2024 - Good Morning! It's Tuesday, July 30.
I'm a collector. I've been collecting for over 40 years. My list of collections includes 35 different areas of interest and over 5,000 individual items. Over the past few years, I've managed to slow down the pace of my collecting. This is primarily because I would like to stay married. But if my eye should fall upon a particularly interesting item... well, I'm not making any promises.
Perhaps my favorite thing to collect is records. I've got some old 78's, a bunch of 45's, even some Edison cylinder records - but the bulk of my collection, about 2,000 discs - are 33&1/3's. These "albums" debuted in the late '40's and were the dominant recording medium for over 40 years. 8-tracks, cassettes, and CDs came along, and now it's Spotify, but vinyl records are still being produced (there's something special about that sound), and the vintage ones are sometimes highly prized and highly priced!
A small, but cherished part of this collection are the records that I inherited when my mother passed away - 14 years ago this summer. One of her favorite singers was Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1956 he put out an album titled simply "Hymns." It became the second biggest selling album of that year - not the second biggest gospel album - the second biggest album of any kind. "Hymns" stayed on the Billboard Charts for 277 consecutive weeks, over 5 years. It was a different time.
I hope that hymns continue to be an important part of your worship life. In Colossians 3:16, the apostle Paul urges us to worship with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs". A thousand years before, King David wrote this in Psalm 40:3 - "He put a new song in my heart, a hymn of praise to our God!"
The same year that Tennessee Ernie Ford gave us the album "Hymns", he began a popular TV show on NBC. He told the network that he wanted to feature a hymn in every episode. The studio executives said they didn't think that was a good idea. He replied, in that case, they could find somebody else to host. Ford closed every single show with a gospel song. I close today's devotion with the lyrics from one of the songs on his famous album. Do you remember his deep, baritone voice? Maybe you can imagine him singing these words -
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.
See on the portals He's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me
Come home. Come home. Ye who are weary come home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling "O sinner, come home"
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
