Not until recently have two hymns come to my attention which address speech impediments. Yes, speech impediments. What are hymns doing that contain verses about lisping and stammering tongues? They are in hymns because they are common human traits that people both fear and loath. I, for one, hate stammering and false starts when it comes to talking. You begin saying what you want, hesitate or pause, and then begin to say the exact same thing over top of yourself. I reckon we just have so much we want to say that we get in a hurry and our brain is working faster than our speech organs produce speech that we trip over ourself in the process. I’m sure it’s happened where something pops into your mind that you want to right down and you begin writing but it’s like the pen cannot keep up with the brain. The vocal equivalent of this is a stammering tongue.

William Cowper’s 18th century hymn There Is A Fountain speaks of this impeding of the tongue.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Beautiful imagery indeed and coupled with a pleasant melody for those familiar with the tune. Notice the 4th and 5th verses:

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

At the moments I’m plagued with a stamm’ring tongue, I long for the day to lie silent in the grave and for my heart to interpret to the Holy Spirit what my mouth is unable to adequately communicate. As if I didn’t readily identify enough with this hymn and the disaster that is speech impediment, around the same time as thinking about this hymn and its unique address of stammering tongues, I stumbled upon Spurgeon. In his devotional book Morning & Evening for the morning of April 27 I found:

It is our own fault if we make not free with the riches of our God. Then, since thou hast such a friend, and he invites thee, draw from him daily. Never want whilst thou hast a God to go to; never fear or faint whilst thou hast God to help thee; go to thy treasure and take whatever thou needest—there is all that thou canst want. Learn the divine skill of making God all things to thee. He can supply thee with all, or, better still, he can be to thee instead of all.

Some much comes to mind now–hymns, proverbs, verses, sayings–but the point in them all is this: let God be to me instead of all.