How will I show my faith to you?
How will you know who rules my heart?
I pray my deeds will show me true
And thus show my faith's better part.
How will I show my faith to you?
How will you know my faith is real?
My words alone, they cannot do
What this world needs to grow and heal.
How will I show my faith to you?
How will you know whose child I am?
I pray my God will give me tasks
That show my faith is not a sham.
How will the world know faith is real,
Not mere belief, self-righteous claim?
When church acts out its works of love
To high and lowly all the same.
TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2024, after James 2:18.
MUSIC: Tune GERMANY, Gardiner's Sacred Melodies, 1815.
For this verse-right-after-a-lectionary-reading text, the best approach seemed to be to bring some humility to the author's brash claim ("I will show you my faith by my works"), humility that had better be present when we make such a claim (as well as a lot of prayer).
