The great musician Fernando Ortega gives a bit of advice to hymn writers: happy church songs don’t stick to your ribs. Work on that next hymn in the light of some specific imagery or drama from the Scriptures. Ortega notes: “It’s easy to write a chorus that says:

God, you are a Holy God

I need your grace to see me through

I need your mercy to make me new

Let me live each day for you.

I just made that up in two minutes and there’s nothing wrong with it. It might fit easily and competitively among the hundreds of worship songs that are available to choose from. But compare those lines to the third stanza from the above hymn:

Let holy charity mine outward vesture be,

And lowliness become mine inner clothing;

True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part,

And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.”