Take My Life, and Let It Be Consecrated

About the piece

Several years ago our family began hosting a weekly Bible study with my son's friend group at our home. We spent quite a bit of time during 2021 in the book of Romans. In chapter 12, Paul exhorts believers in Rome to:

"Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." - verse 1

The hymn Take My Life, and Let It Be Consecrated is essentially a prayer. In it, Frances R. Havergal (1836-1879) pens words that challenges all believers to live a life separate from the world around them.

Take my life

Take my hands

Take my feet

Take my voice

Take my silver and my gold

Take my moments and my days

Take my will

Take my heart

In all aspects, the composer's prayer is that everything would be consecrated, or set apart, for doing the will of God in such a sacrificial way that it would be pleasing to Him alone. This arrangement for saxophone choir focuses on a presentation of both the HENDON and YARBROUGH melodies. The introductory A section provides a short motif that alternates between a whole step and that of a minor third as if trying to decide which interval has the best "fit" within the piece. The initial statement of the HENDON melody in measure 9 begins the B section, presented in a very stable major key. However, the pondering motif continues to interrupt the melodic progression of the section as the prayer considers how one's life and hands can be set apart for God.

A short reprisal of the A section and the pondering motif take over as the work heads into the C section at measure 24. Presented in minor, the YARBOROUGH melody is used as the composer considers how the feet and voice can be consecrated for God. Here, the pondering becomes more of a struggle, as I can imagine the believer struggling with the idea of what it truly means to consecrate the entirety of one's life.

A short two measure return to the pondering motif of the A section brings us back to the HENDON statement of the hymn, this time presented in a fugue. Here, the believer considers how their silver, gold, moments, and days could all work together in a sacrificial way that glorifies all God has done for them. Ultimately, the believer arrives at a point of decision. It is in turning over the will and heart to the ways of the Father that impact the rest of the way in which we live a consecrated life. At measure 47, both the HENDON and YARBROUGH melodies are stated together on the final statement of the piece.

Finally, the A section returns to close the prayer, as the pondering motif in answered by the baritone saxophone in the final statement of the work, taken from the hymntune Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, which says:

"Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above."

This piece is a humble prayer of recognition of the calling all believer's have to live a life consecrated to both the ways and purposes of the God who loves us unconditionally with an everlasting love.