Have you ever experienced a brief encounter with someone you never met before and throughout the years you remember the encounter? Strange experience, is it not? It was a bitter cold February, and I was attending a lectureship at Freed-Hardeman College. The year I cannot remember, maybe in the 1970’s. I was walking on the campus grounds, and there were very few out at that time. About ten yards away I started to approach a tall, elderly gentleman. As we met each other, he smiled and said something like, “You would think the college would have these lectureships during warmer months.” Smiling, I verbally agreed as we passed each other. I recognized this Christian gentleman as L.O. Sanderson. Brother Sanderson has written some 500 songs and hymns, a wonderful and lasting achievement.
“Be With Me, Lord” has been noted as the most popular of his songs. It is also one of my favorites. It strikes a chord of human weakness as one faces the ordeals of this life, to include the closeness of one’s own death. Following are the lyrics of this beautiful Gospel song.
Be With me Lord
By T. O. Chisholm and L. O. Sanderson
Be with me, Lord—I cannot live without Thee, I dare not try to take one step alone, I cannot bear the loads of life, unaided, I need Thy strength to lean myself upon.
Be with me, Lord, and then if dangers threaten, If storms of trial burst above my head, If lashing seas leap ev’rywhere about me, They cannot harm, or make my heart afraid.
Be with me, Lord! No other gift or blessing Thou couldst bestow could with this one compare— A constant sense of Thy abiding presence, Where’er I am, to feel that Thou art near.
Be with me, Lord, when loneliness o’er-takes me, When I must weep amid the fires of pain, And when shall come the hour of “my departure” For “worlds unknown,” O Lord, be with me then.
“…and he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Jehovah is with you, while ye are with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15:2 ASV). NOTE: L.O. Sanderson’s son, Leon Sanderson, wrote a timely autobiography about his father (https://www.therestorationmovement.com/sanderson.htm).
