This hymn has been nominated by two people! Lin Jones and Lynne Palmer
Firstly, Lin Jones;
I remember singing this hymn in school assembly, and had it at our wedding 45 years ago . My grandmother had it at her wedding too in 1918. I just love the words.
This is a more traditional version.
This hymn was also chose by Lynne Palmer who said;
One of my favourite hymns is O Jesus I have Promised to the modern tune and I particularly like this up-beat version (below) by the Guildford Cathedral Choir. I have a Spotify playlist of hymns & worship songs on my phone which I use to help me exercise and specifically to encourage me to keep going when I am on a run. I have entitled this playlist 'Hope' & I've currently got about 12 tracks on there so it's roughly 35 minutes long which is about as long as I can currently keep running for! This hymn is actually the shortest on the playlist but the one that I sometimes simply set on repeat because the rhythm of this is exactly right for my running cadence - for those who are interested it is about 75 beats per minute. Many other hymns are much slower and do not help me when all I want to do is start walking (although others are very good for the rowing machine - I might come to that in another blog).
However, it's not all about the melody or the rhythm. I do actually really like the lyrics as well. 'I shall not fear the battle If You are by my side' always makes me think of Nelson Mandela's quote - 'Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it'; and we can all be courageous if Jesus is with us. I like the fact that this version has simplified words in it replacing a number of the thou's with you's, and the often misconstrued 'My hope to follow duly (Julie)' has been reworded 'My hope to follow daily'. 'Speak, and make me listen', 'Give me grace to follow', 'Guide me, call me, draw me, uphold me to the end' of the next run at least!