My God and I

"My God and I" is a hymn which describes the close relationship which one who loves Christ can have as both the Father and the Son come unto him and make Their abode with him is “My God and I” (#93 in Hymns for Worship Revised, #A in Sacred Selections for the Church).  The text and tune were first published in 1935 and attributed to I. B. Sergei.  However, it was generally believed that this was a pseudonym.  It is now known that the author and composers’ real name was Austris August Wihtol, who was born on Jan. 24, 1889, in Riga, Latvia, one of six children, and grew up a Lutheran.  After receiving most of his education in Russia, he came to the United States and performed in concert extensively with the Latvian Singers, which he founded upon his arrival.  In his youth, he had composed operas, symphonies, and other major works, but in his later years he devoted his time mainly to practical choral music.  His first wife died in childbirth.  In 1932, he met his second wife Elly, who had been born in the Netherlands and was an opera singer, when he was in California practicing with his Latvian chorus for a performance.  She attended the Wiltshire Christian Church.  They lived in Chicago from 1933 to 1944 and had one daughter named Charlotte, who died in 1988. 

     Wihtol actually composed the song “My God and I” over a thirty-year period.  In fact, searching for the “perfect” arrangement, he produced hundreds of versions, including even an opera, before completing the present arrangement in 1932 at Glendale, CA.  Not sure that this was still the masterpiece he wanted, he signed it with the pen name “I. B. Sergei.”  Ten years later, he was browsing through a bookstore in Chicago and noticed a hymnbook with his hymn, which he had never released to anyone, in it.  After he successfully defended his claims against copyright infringement, things went well for the Wihtols and their publishing business, which they established after returning to Glendale, CA, or moved with them, until the mid 1960s when Austris developed Alzheimer’s disease.  The copyright was renewed in 1963 by Wihtol and then assigned to Singspiration Inc., at that time a division of Zondervan, in 1970.  It is now owned by New Spring Inc. and administered by the Brentwood-Benson Publishing Co. of Nashville, TN.

 In a booklet The Writing of “My God and I,” Wihtol said that the original inspiration for the hymn came from his youth back in his homeland of Latvia.  “The concept of ‘go in the field together…’ began when I was a boy about seven years old.  In our family there were two places of environment, the home and the field….The fields were a place of beauty and happiness.”  Additional inspiration came a few years later when he met an orphan girl about sixteen years old named “Happy Anna,” who had escaped from a cruel, dirty orphanage, traveled about like a Gypsy, and would sing every day to the Riga harbor workers at noon to earn her meals.  She was called “Happy” because in spite of her uncertainty of daily life, she had a constant smile and a cheerful attitude.  Wihtol wrote, “Happy Anna brought to me a new conception of God…a God that is with me when I do the best acts of my life.”  Wihtol died of a heart attack in Glendale on Apr. 3, 1974, at the age of 85, and Elly died in 1996. 

     Among hymnbooks published by members of the Lord’s church for use in churches of Christ, the song was added to the inside front cover of the 1956 Sacred Selections sometime in the 1970s and has appeared in the 1973 edition of the 1971 Songs of the Church, the 1990 Songs of the Church 21st C. Ed., and the 1994 Songs of Faith and Praise all edited by Alton H. Howard; the 1977 Special Sacred Selections edited by Ellis J. Crum; the 1978 Hymns of Praise edited by Reuel Lemmons; the 1978/1983 Church Gospel Songs and Hymns edited by V. E. Howard; the 1992 Praise for the Lord edited by John P. Wiegand; the 2007 Sacred Songs of the Church edited by William D. Jeffcoat; and the 2009 Favorite Songs of the Church and the 2010 Songs for Worship and Praise both edited by Robert J. Taylor Jr.; in addition to Hymns for Worship.

The song expresses the closeness of the kind of personal relationship that God wants to have with His people.

 You may have noticed that in stanzas 1 and 2, lines two and four rhyme, but in stanza 3, the corresponding lines do not rhyme (friends should and do/unendingly).  Of course, hymns don’t have to rhyme to be scriptural, and I’ve even read of some modern hymn writers who lash out and rail against “the strictures of rhyming,” but the fact is that rhyme is a general characteristic of English poetry, including hymn poetry.  Why Wihtol didn’t rhyme the stanza is beyond me.  It seems that he could have written, “And good friends we shall be….Go on unendingly.”  But that is really neither here nor there.  There was a time when this hymn was criticized for being “too personal,” but today most people see nothing wrong with a hymn expressing the concept of a personal relationship with the Lord.   With regard to my own soul’s salvation and hope of heaven, the two most important beings are “My God and I.”

To download the easy alphanotes and chords sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics: 

My God and I go in the fields together,
We walk and talk as good friends should and do;
We clasp our hands, our voices ring with laughter,
My God and I walk through the meadow's hue.

He tells me of the years that went before me,
When heavenly plans were made for me to be;
When all was but a dream of dim conception,
To come to life, earth's verdant glory see.

My God and I will go for aye together,
We'll walk and talk as good friends should and do;
This earth will pass, and with it common trifles,
But God and I will go unendingly.