Thursday Hymn Reflection: “Listen to Our Hearts”

[Each Thursday, we “reflect” on a hymn suggested by our readers. If you would like to add your favorites to our list, leave a comment with up to three songs, and we’ll reflect on them in the future.]

A favorite devotional song for several years now, “Listen to Our Hearts” is a beautifully poetic song about how difficult it is to try to express the beauty and grandeur of God.  In fact, that is the message of the song, but Geoff Moore and Steven Curtis Chapman, the writers, were able to state that same concept over and over to form the lyrics of the song.

When I sing this song, I think of the Psalms. The reason is that, no matter how beautiful the praises are in several of the Psalms, they still fall short of truly expressing the grandness of creation or the glory of God. They are simply the writers’ attempt to praise God.

We all know that we fall far short in trying to truly describe God and that we also fall short in fully praising Him. That’s what leads to my favorite line of the song. In the chorus, we sing, “We will use the words we know to tell you what an awesome God you are. But words are not enough to tell You of our love, so listen to our hearts.” How true those simple lines are.

It simply does not matter if you are a simple-minded person, or if you have the literary ability of Shakespeare, none of us can fully praise God with our words. However, our God is so great that He loves what we can and do offer in praise of Him. And, since He is so grand, why not take the time to offer “the fruit of lips” to Him even today?

Here are the lyrics to the song, written in 1992:

How do you explain, how do you describe

A love that goes from east to west,

And runs as deep as it is wide.

You know all our hopes, Lord, You know all our fears.

And words cannot express the love we feel

But we long for You to hear.

If words could fall like rain from these lips of mine,

And if I had a thousand years,

Lord, I would still run out of time.

If You listen to my heart, ev’ry beat will say:

“Thank You for the Life, Thank You for the Truth,

Thank You for the Way.”

So listen to our hearts, hear our spirits sing

A song of praise that flows

From those you have redeemed.

We will use the words we know to tell You

What an awesome God You are

But words are not enough to tell You of our love,

So listen to our hearts.

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What are your thoughts on this song?