Cast your cares upon the Lord and He will sustain you. ~ Psalm 55:22
I am sure you have read or heard songwriters tell about how they wrote a particular song. Inspiration came from many events and situations. A lot of them were deep, touching, traumatic, filled with drama. However, there were exceptions. This song is one of them.
Charles Tindley was a distinguished black Methodist pastor from Philadelphia. He was often referred to as "The Prince of Preachers." The son of slave parents and orphaned at five years of age, Charles taught himself to read and write by age 17. Later he attended night school in Philadelphia. He took correspondence courses from the Boston School of Theology and earned his divinity degree. When he took his examination for the ministry, he was the janitor of the Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. He pastored several small churches. In 1902, at age 51, he was called to become pastor of the same church where he been janitor at the time of his ordination. He served there for more than thirty years. The congregation was made up of both negroes and whites. In 1924 a new building was erected and, in spite of his protests, renamed The Tindley Temple United Methodist Church. At the time of his death in 1933 the church had 12,500 members.
Tindley is known as one of the “founding fathers of American Gospel music.” He wrote Nothing Between—By And By (We’ll understand it better)—Stand By Me. His “I’ll Overcome Some Day” was the basis for the American civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” popularized in the 1960’s.
It was 1916. One of his parishioners came to him with a worry. This pastor, who had mastered Greek and Hebrew, used “down home” vernacular and told the man to “put all your troubles in a sack, take ‘em to the Lord, and leave ‘em there.” This was the spark that prompted the Tindley to develop his thought and pen this now familiar hymn…
If the world from you withhold of its silver and its gold,
And you have to get along with meager fare,
Just remember, in His Word, how He feeds the little bird;
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
Refrain
Leave it there, leave it there,
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
If you trust and never doubt,
He will surely bring you out.
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
- Charles A. Tindley, 1916
Hymn commentary courtesy J. D. Sherrow
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Originally Posted by Wes Smith
