GOD OF ABRAHAM HYMNAL

Some of my warmest memories are of singing hymns with my parents and grandparents, both at home and at church. Tears come to my eyes as I remember my grandmother's quiet voice, singing me to sleep with "Jesus makes us shine with a clear pure light..." as if it was just last night. 

As a Jewish family we attend synagogue on a regular basis, but I also wanted my children to grow up knowing the old hymns that had warmed my heart with their deep faith. And that was when hit a problem: all the hymnals I could find had been heavily edited, removing verses and often simplifying the lyrics. That, and none of them had all the hymns I wanted my kids to learn. 

So, I made my own hymnal! It wasn't fancy, just a green three-ring binder with loose leaf paper using a font that made it look like it had been printed by an old-fashioned typewriter, but it had everything I wanted to make those memories with my family. We read and sang from that binder for years - sometimes just singing, and sometimes talking about what the words meant. When my parents visited we sang from it with them too, and it always took me back. 

I loved singing the original lyrics. Sometimes we had to ask Siri what words meant, like "guerdons", and then Google them because Siri didn't know. At other times we looked at each other awkwardly, like when we got to the line about "washing the Æthiop white" (my wife, who is African-American, especially appreciated that metaphor.) And several times we burst out laughing as we sang that "this awful God is ours" and that "he calls a worm his friend", or of divine mercy, that "oh my God, it found out me!"

It also felt good to know that we were singing all the verses. My kids will grow up to not just tell people that their Abba made them sing all 19 verses of "O For A Thousand Tongues", but how he also humorously pointed out to them just how lucky they were to be having that experience and that one day they'd be oh-so-nostalgically telling people about it.

As the years went by the green binder became increasingly dog-earred, with the pages falling out if we didn't handle it carefully. Then, in 2023, I started a Publishing House. Almost fifty titles later, I realized that I now had the skills I needed to publish a family hymnal! I also had a new cause: after the birth of my second son it was strongly impressed upon me that I was to raise my sons as modern-day Levites. And that the old hymns were to be a part of that. 

Having experienced what I felt to be a divine commission, on June 25, 2024 I started collecting hymns for what I was originally going to call the "God of Abram Hymnal". I started with the popular hymns and ended up with 125, a meaningful number to me (5 x 5 x 5 = complete grace.) I then began a grueling quest, slowly combing for over a month straight through over 16,000 hymns, searching for lost treasures about the themes that make this hymnbook distinctive: themes that were not only close to my Jewish heart, but that I believe the Holy Spirit is prophetically emphasizing to the Bride today. 

I didn't only include hymns that were popular or that had Jewish themes, either; I also included some obscure hymns just because they really touched my heart. For instance, there were dozens of hymns about Jesus being our friend, but there was only one about being his friend. And then there was one about flowers, just because my wife loves flowers. This was to be the God of Abraham Hymnal, but it was also to be the Avraham family's hymnbook. 

After finishing with over 1100 hymns, I slowly went through them again with a simple question: "Do I really want to sing this with my kids?" That helped me narrow it down to 888 hymns that truly gripped me - a number that I pray is significant for the impact these songs will have on the generation we are now raising up. 

The rest is history. It took another month to prepare these newly-discovered treasures for publishing. As I sat there on the eve of their release, looking back at the whirlwind and looking ahead to what I hoped would be a glorious awakening, I wrote the following: 

I see open-air gatherings like the revivals of old, with thousands thundering these hymns of faith and hope. 

I see the body of Christ rising to her calling to stand with Israel and uphold her in prayer as she steps into the prophetic power of God's appointed times.

I see a new generation with a passion stronger than death, singing the songs of the Lamb until he comes again. Because this truly is a bold new hymnal for a passionate generation. 

And I see myself, singing these songs with my children and grandchildren (should He tarry), laughing and making more of the same kinds of memories we made as we sang from the tattered green binder. 

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