Love Him in the Morning: Reflections on God's Faithfulness

John Fischer, one of the few genuine poets in the Christian music industry, penned one of the most memorable contemporary Christian songs some 30 years ago. "The All Day Song" is a deceptively simple song, made to look all the more simple by the addition of the hand signs Fischer teaches to his audiences --- and not just to his younger audiences. Granted, as he writes, "Hand motions are a staple for camp songs, and I often joke about where old John Fischer songs go to live out their days: They go to camp." But they also go to drug and alcohol rehab centers, where tough and world-weary recovering addicts play right along and experience a joy often missing from their lives. In this slim gift book, Fischer displays his considerable skills as a writer in six reflections that mirror the six thematic elements in the lyrics of his best-known song: morning, evening, in-between times, God's love, worry, and the circular "so" --- a word that becomes drawn out in the singing and fleshed out in the writing, "making a big deal of it on purpose," he writes. "It's what wraps the song around itself and keeps it singing all day." Throughout the book, Fischer weaves anecdotes about the writing of the song and the impact it has had, and offers thoughtful insight into how the lyrics apply to our everyday lives. What's striking at times is the way the lyricist himself has discovered new levels of meaning in the words he wrote three decades ago. One line in the song refers to the pressure that comes in the in-between times of our day --- all that happens between the moment we wake up and the moment we settle down for the night. "I just realized recently that this is not about pressure but about pressure on the way. We're on the verge of it. It's right around the corner. It's coming...It's about the anticipation of something bad about to happen." The song continues to reveal new truth to the songwriter. Likewise, Fischer has gained years of insight into the line about "remembering" God's love and his promise to stay --- a line he admits he had doubts about all those years ago. In the intervening years, though, he has taken notice of the many times scripture admonishes God's people to remember --- remember his love, remember his miracles, remember his faithfulness, remember his history of coming through for them. "This is not an exercise in nostalgia...When you feel pressure coming, remembering that God loves you and will be with you always is something you apply to the fear like a tourniquet," he writes. "You stop the bleeding with the truth and wait on God for further instructions." Fischer brings it all together in a lovely and wonderfully told story about the only time his six-month-old son would meet Fischer's 89-year-old mother. That alone is worth the reading. LOVE HIM IN THE MORNING may be a little book, but there's nothing trivial in its content.