Take my Hands and Make Them as Your Own

This hymn is about surrendering yourself to service and doing God's will. It is often suggested as an Offertory hymn.

It was written by South African born lay-Franciscan Sebastian Temple (1928-1997).

It was included in the 20th Century Folk Hymnal Volume 1, and various other books published in the 1970s. Sheet music is still available from OCP, and the song is also in hymn-books including McCrimmon's Celebration Hymnal for Everyone 2012 edition, which is still in-print.

Like most of Temple's work, this song is not covered by CCLI licensing.

The words are set to an un-named tune, also by Temple. This has a 4/4 time signature, and in the key of E, the first few notes of the melody are E B, AGFE.

Image adapted from a work by Artotem.
Used and shared under a Creative Commons licence.

Downloads

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Sheet music from OCP

Examples

Choir with keyboard

Solo singer with guitar

An early recording - small group with guitar and mandolin?

Singer with guitar, words and chords on-screen

Large choir with gentle keyboard

Small band, professional recording with words on-screen

Instrumental - piano

Lyrics

The lyrics are copyright so cannot be reproduced here. But they are currently available on this website. Guitar chords are available here.

The song has three verses. Each is four lines long - but to make sense, the 3rd and 4th lines need to run together. A rough outline is:

1 Take my hands and make them as your own, ...

2 Take my hands, they speak now for my heart ...

3 Take my hands; I give them to you, Lord ...