The story behind the hymn
Annie Hawks was a Brooklyn housewife and mother who wrote verse in the margins of an ordinary domestic life. One bright June morning in 1872, going about her housework, she was suddenly filled with a sense of nearness to God and the thought: I need Thee every hour. She wrote the lines at once; her pastor, Robert Lowry, added the refrain and the tune.
What makes the hymn unusual is that it was born in gladness, not crisis. Hawks wrote later that she had not known deep sorrow when she wrote it — that came years afterward, when her husband died, and she found her own hymn waiting for her: it was then, she said, that I understood something of its comforting power.
The hymn measures dependence not in seasons but in hours: I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain; come quickly and abide, or life is vain. It refuses the idea that we need God more in trouble than in peace — most gracious Lord, no tender voice like Thine can peace afford — and the refrain simply keeps asking: I need Thee, O I need Thee; every hour I need Thee.
The lyrics
I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.
Refrain
I need Thee, O I need Thee;Every hour I need Thee!O bless me now, my Saviour,I come to Thee.
I need Thee every hour; stay Thou near by;Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.
I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.
I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son.
Public domain. Free to sing, copy, print, and share.
The Scripture behind it
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
Without me ye can do nothing — the dependence the hymn confesses hourly.
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
Early will I seek thee — the morning nearness that began the hymn.