What a Friend We Have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear.

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,

Oh, what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged—

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful,

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness;

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden,

Cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Savior, still our refuge—

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

In his arms he’ll take and shield thee,

Thou wilt find a solace there.

This poem of simple faith in Jesus is only a little less iconic than “Amazing Grace.” It is known around the world in many languages, and the number of popular singers who have recorded it is amazing. Several things save this poem from being as simplistic as it may initially seem, and one of these is the crucible of suffering out of which it arose.

Joseph Scriven lived his early life in the north of Ireland. At age twenty-four, on the night before he was scheduled to be married, his fiancée was thrown from her horse into a river, where she drowned as Scriven looked on helplessly. To distance himself from his grief, Scriven moved to Canada, where he devoted himself at the cost of personal poverty to ministry and service to the disadvantaged. When he again fell in love, his second fiancée died of pneumonia shortly before the wedding. When Scriven heard of his mother’s serious illness back in Ireland, he wrote a poem of comfort for her that he titled “Pray without Ceasing.” It was later set to music and became the hymn we know as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

When we turn to the poem itself, we again find that it is not as simple as it appears to be. We can see this first in the multiplicity of genres that converge. It is a poem of assurance and also a poem of comfort. But then there is a countermovement, as we become aware of a strong element of exhortation and even rebuke for our lack of faith in the sufficiency of Jesus and even more for our lack of fervor in prayer. This poem also fits the genre of a meditative poem in which the poet thinks through the ramifications of the subject that has been introduced. And because this poem uses the plural form of reference, Scriven’s personal reflections become transmuted into the communal meditation of all believers.

The topics covered as the poem unfolds show a similar complexity. There is a sense in which the first two lines introduce the idea that controls the rest of the poem, inasmuch as the meditation does highlight the friendship of Jesus and his sufficiency for us in the griefs that define our lives. But in a surprise move, the poem quickly comes to focus on prayer as the main subject. More specifically, the subject of the poem is the comfort that is available to us in adversity through prayer.

The foregoing is only the beginning of the complexity that is present in this seemingly simple poem. Two time-honored rhetorical devices organize the poem. One is the catalog or inventory, as the poet lists the griefs of life that are our lot in a fallen world and an accompanying inventory of the provisions that Jesus gives us. Second, there are five rhetorical questions in the poem—questions that are not asked to obtain information, since their answer is self-evident, but that instead awaken our agreement with what the poet is saying. For example, we all know that there are trials and temptations in life; the poet asks his question as a way of getting us to acknowledge that we are aware of this.

While the abundance that has been noted thus far is indeed impressive, there can be little doubt that this poem became an iconic hymn because it taps into powerful archetypes of human experience. Examples in this poem are peace, pain, all-inclusive “trouble,” betrayal by friends, human weakness, a “load” of care that we bear, refuge, and encircling arms of protection. Everyone resonates with these archetypes.

This poem took its origin from a specific passage of the New Testament. That passage is 1 Thessalonians 5:17–18:

Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Scriven, J. (1819–1886). What a Friend We Have in Jesus. In 40 Favorite Hymns of the Christian Faith: A Closer Look at Their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning (pp. 15–18). P&R Publishing.