From yesterday’s modern worship song, we flash back more than a hundred years for the song “Love Unknown” (the tune name, which I chose as the blog post tile) better known as “Oft When of God We Ask.” And yet, there’s something very contemporary about these soul-searching lyrics, and approach to its theme: Trusting God in trials. It’s almost out-of-sync with other hymns from the same era. (Or perhaps, with the hymns that have survived with which we are now familiar.) The writer is Thomas Toke Lynch (1818-1871). I tried to find a video for this, but as you can imagine, this is a very obscure hymn.
Oft when of God we ask
For fuller, happier life,
He sets us some new task
Involving care and strife ;
Is this the boon for which we sought?
Has prayer new trouble on us brought?
This is indeed the boon,
Though strange to us it seems :
We pierce the rock, and soon
The blessing on us streams ;
For when we are the most athirst,
Then the clear waters on us burst.
We toil as in a field,
Wherein, to us unknown,
A treasure lies concealed,
Which may be all our own:
And shall we of the toil complain
That speedily will bring such gain ?
We dig the wells of life,
And God the water gives ;
We win our way by strife,
Then He within us lives ;
And only war could make us meet
For peace so sacred and so sweet.
Christianity 201 
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