O, For A Closer Walk With God

A Bit About The Song…

O, For A Closer Walk With God
This beautiful hymn speaks of the longing of a heart yearning for a deeper connection with God. To understand where the sentiment comes from in the beautiful words of the song, we have to take a look at the life of the original author, Englishmen William Cowper. 

William Cowper suffered so severely from chronic depression that his contemporaries called him Mad Cowper. Of course, during the 1700s, the connotation of the word mad during the time leaned more toward insanity than anger. 

William longed for acceptance by Jesus Christ, he longs to be what he called “The Bard of Christianity”. But he felt wholly unable to escape the thought that God had predestined him to be eternally condemned. After three failed suicide attempts he found solace in a Mission for the Indigent led by Pastor John Newton. There he found the truth of the Gospel, the loving accepting Jesus of the New Testament, and wrote some of his most beautiful and poignant hymns, Including this beautiful prayer, O For A Closer Walk With God, penning beautifully the longing of his heart to stay in the safety of the presence of his Savior and to draw ever nearer. 

https://hymnary.org/text/o_for_a_closer_walk_with_god
https://hymnary.org/person/Cowper_W 

“Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.”
Revelation 1:7