The other day I was humming “Abide With Me” under my breath—yes, just quietly, reverently, in my usual out-of-tune baritone—when someone at home (I won’t mention who, but she’s usually quite fond of my ‘music’) wrinkled her nose and said, “Could you not sing that? It sounds… mournful. Like you’re about to drop dead.”

Drop dead?

All I was doing was humming one of the greatest hymns ever written!

“Isn’t that the song they play when someone important dies?” she added helpfully, now making tea like she was brewing something for the funeral.

Ah yes, the poor hymn! Forever shackled to military bands, retreat ceremonies, and long walks behind slow-moving hearses. “Abide With Me” has become the national anthem of dignified gloom. Even the navy plays it with such solemn precision, you’d think the Almighty was being marched off to retirement.

But let’s pause a moment.

Have you read the words?

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide…”

Now does that sound like a dead man’s request? Or the cry of someone navigating through a dozen autorickshaws in peak traffic, with a leaking lunchbox and a boss waiting to yell?

It’s not a funeral song, my friends. It’s a survival song. A revival song. It’s for those still kicking and occasionally screaming, for those knee-deep in life’s mess, with deadlines on their desk, arthritis in their knees, or maybe fired from his job with formidable loans that cry out for repayment.

It’s for people like you and me, who face darkness—not just the one that comes at 7 pm in December, but the kind that creeps into your soul after the sixth rejection email from a newspaper (oh don’t I know!)

It’s for people who need Someone to abide.

So I did what I do when I’m told I sound doleful: I pulled out my old harmonica. And instead of letting the tune drag its feet like a reluctant schoolboy on Monday morning, I gave it some bounce. A little swing. A touch of joy.

“Abide With Me” with a bhangra beat? Oh yes!

And you should have seen the faces change. The air lifted. The words didn’t lose their depth—but they gained a beat of hope. Because that’s what God does when He abides—He doesn’t just sit beside you with a long face and a sigh, He rolls up His sleeves, brings in the sunshine, and says, “Let’s turn your situation around!”

So the next time you sing, “Abide with me,” don’t whisper it like a fading ghost. Sing it like someone who knows Heaven’s about to act!

And if your God can’t make you smile when you’re in the gutter, then maybe, just maybe, you’re calling the wrong one.

Because when He abides, the tune changes. From dirge… to dance…!

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