I’m gonna live so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna live so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna work so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna work so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna pray so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna pray so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna sing so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
I’m gonna sing so God can use me anywhere, Lord, anytime!
African American spiritual
This African-American spiritual is a simple mission hymn. It states that the singer is going to live, work, pray, and sing so that he/she is available to be used by God for any purpose, anywhere, and at any time. Such sentiments require openness to the call of God and an ability to discern what needs to be done to further God’s reign of peace and justice.
How do you keep open to God’s call of service, witness, and action? Discernment is a lifelong activity and is enabled by the Holy Spirit working through friends, family, events, prayer, scripture, hymns, etc. How have you discerned God’s direction for your life in the past? Has God’s call for you changed in the last year? If so how, and what have you done about it?
What are some of the daily ways that you respond to God’s call? Remember that God’s call does not have to be dramatic and neither does your response.
Writers of individual spirituals are unknown. Often the “writing” was a community project and came out of the slaves’ struggle for survival. Many spirituals were rhythmic, easily taught, and contained images of the ordinary life of the slaves. In this spiritual to live, work, pray, and sing were daily activities and all were to be done for and with God.
Make the spiritual personal by changing perhaps the words (live, work, pray, sing) to words that reflect your daily life.
