God of the Sparrow

One of the hymns that we will be singing on Sunday, March 29, 2009 for the 7th Annual WLA Hymn Festival will be "God of the Sparrow", text by Jaroslav J. Vajda and tune by Carl F. Schalk.

Have you ever struggled to understand what God's Word means, or what a hymn or song is getting at, and then something happens that you just get it? That happened for me a couple years ago when I heard the Koine version of the Irish hymn "This is My Will" (Christian Worship 497). Up until that time, I didn't really get how to "correctly" perform that hymn. Then I heard them perform it, both live and on one of their CDs (Gesangbuch), and the music and setting suddenly made sense.

Well, that just happened to me with "God of the Sparrow." Honestly, I have not understood two things about this hymn: (1) why does it keep asking questions that it doesn't answer, and (2) why has it become, according to statistics given by Carl Schalk to the 2002 WELS National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts, one of Vajda's most popular hymn texts?

I'm in the process of writing the program for the WLA Jaroslav Vajda Hymn Festival, and I Googled "God of the Sparrow" to speed up the process of retyping it into my program. This video was the first link on Google. I cried...many times. Now I understand a little bit better.



God of the sparrow
God of the whale
God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe
How does the creature say Praise

God of the earthquake
God of the storm
God of the trumpet blast
How does the creature cry Woe
How does the creature cry Save

God of the rainbow
God of the cross
God of the empty grave
How does the creature say Grace
How does the creature say Thanks

God of the hungry
God of the sick
God of the prodigal
How does the creature say Care
How does the creature say Life

God of the neighbor
God of the foe
God of the pruning hook
How does the creature say Love
How does the creature say Peace

God of the ages
God of the hand
God of the loving heart
How do your children say Joy
How do your children say Home