Give to the Winds Thy Fears: Meaning, History, and Theology
"Give to the winds thy fears"
- Written
- 1653
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Verified
- Rights
- Public domain
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Story
Give to the Winds Thy Fears is John Wesley’s English rendering of part of Paul Gerhardt’s 1653 German hymn “Befiehl du deine Wege,” a text built around Psalm 37:5. This record’s ST. GEORGE setting is by Henry John Gauntlett, while other hymnals use tunes such as FESTAL SONG and ST. BRIDE.
Overview
Give to the Winds Thy Fears is a compact school of Christian trust. Rather than pretending that fear, grief, uncertainty, and delay are unreal, the hymn directs them toward the providence of God. Its movement is pastoral: anxiety is acknowledged, the believer is urged to wait rather than surrender to despair, and confidence rests finally in God’s wisdom and care rather than in the worshiper’s ability to control events.
The English text comes from John Wesley’s free translation of Paul Gerhardt’s German hymn “Befiehl du deine Wege.” Gerhardt’s original is rooted explicitly in Psalm 37:5, and Wesley’s version carries that same summons to commit one’s way to God into eighteenth-century English devotional language. The portion beginning “Give to the winds thy fears” later circulated as a hymn in its own right, sometimes abridged from the fuller English translation.
For worship leaders, the hymn is especially suited to services concerned with providence, suffering, anxiety, perseverance, funerals, or pastoral consolation. Its theology does not promise an easy life or immediate relief. Instead, it teaches patient faith: prayer hands the burden to God, hope waits through what cannot yet be understood, and the community learns to confess God’s faithfulness in both life and death.
Historical Background
Paul Gerhardt’s German hymn “Befiehl du deine Wege” first appeared in the fifth edition of Johann Crüger’s Praxis Pietatis Melica, published in Berlin in 1653 as hymn no. 322. The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology identifies the original as a twelve-stanza hymn headed “Der 37 Psalm (Vers 5).” Its stanza openings form an acrostic on Martin Luther’s wording of Psalm 37:5, making the biblical command to commit one’s way to the Lord part of the poem’s very structure. The exact circumstances in which Gerhardt composed the hymn are not known. Later stories connected its composition with crises in Gerhardt’s ministry, but those events occurred after the hymn was already in print, so they cannot explain its origin.
Gerhardt was then pastor at Mittenwalde and was already closely associated with Crüger, the Berlin cantor and hymnal editor who had begun publishing Gerhardt’s texts in earlier editions of Praxis Pietatis Melica. The 1653 printing linked the German hymn with a pre-existing melody rather than with any nineteenth-century English tune. This matters because the text accumulated new musical partners as it crossed languages and denominations; no later English pairing should be mistaken for Gerhardt’s original setting.
John Wesley’s English rendering appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739 under the heading “Trust in Providence. From the German.” The Duke Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition’s scholarly transcription prints sixteen four-line stanzas and identifies Wesley’s German source as a 1737 Herrnhut hymnal containing Gerhardt’s text. Wesley translated freely rather than reproducing Gerhardt’s acrostic. The section now known by the first line “Give to the winds thy fears” begins with stanza 9 of Wesley’s sixteen-stanza translation.
The English text subsequently developed a life apart from the first half of Wesley’s translation. The Canterbury Dictionary notes that the translation was often divided into “Commit thou all thy griefs” and “Give to the winds thy fears,” sometimes as two hymns and sometimes as two parts of one hymn. It was not included in Wesley’s 1780 Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, but the later Methodist Supplement of 1831 printed the material in four-line stanzas. Modern hymnals frequently make further selections; for example, The United Methodist Hymnal of 1989 prints four stanzas drawn from Wesley’s larger text.
The tune history is similarly plural. The specific tune named in this record, ST. GEORGE, is a Short Meter tune by the English organist and composer Henry John Gauntlett, dated 1848 in hymnological indexes. It is demonstrably paired with “Give to the Winds Thy Fears” in later hymnals, including The Book of Praise. ST. GEORGE should not be attributed to William Henry Walter. Walter composed FESTAL SONG, a different Short Meter tune that is also paired with this text in The United Methodist Hymnal. Other hymnals use Samuel Howard’s ST. BRIDE, underscoring that no single English tune has monopolized the text.
The hymn’s longevity therefore rests less on one fixed musical setting than on the portability of Wesley’s Short Meter translation and Gerhardt’s enduring theme of trust in providence. Across successive hymnals, editors have selected different stanzas, adjusted archaic language, and paired the text with different tunes. The version preserved here uses the eight-stanza “Give to the winds thy fears” portion of the 1739 Wesley text as transcribed by the Duke Center, while recognizing that many congregations encounter a shorter four-stanza selection.
Biblical Foundations
Psalm 37:5 is the hymn’s documented biblical foundation, not merely a later thematic association. Gerhardt’s 1653 German text was headed with Psalm 37:5, and the opening words of its twelve stanzas form an acrostic on Luther’s rendering of that verse. The World English Bible Classic expresses the verse as a call to commit one’s way to Yahweh and trust him. That command provides the theological architecture for the hymn: surrender is joined to confidence in God’s action.
Psalm 55:22 and 1 Peter 5:7 are close biblical parallels to the hymn’s treatment of burden and anxiety. Both move the worshiper away from self-consuming care and toward entrusting what cannot be carried alone to God. These are editorial connections rather than claims about Gerhardt’s documented compositional sources, but they illuminate why the text functions so naturally as a hymn of pastoral consolation.
Romans 8:28 adds a New Testament perspective on providence: Christian trust does not require that every event be pleasant, but it confesses that God can work amid the whole pattern of life toward his purpose for those who love him. Isaiah 41:10 likewise joins the command not to fear with God’s promised presence, strength, help, and sustaining hand. Together these passages show that the hymn’s assurance is not optimism about circumstances; it is confidence in the character and action of God.
Verse Explanation
The eight-stanza excerpt begins by addressing fear directly. The first two stanzas move from anxiety toward hope and patience: the worshiper is assured that distress is seen by God and is called to wait through a difficult present rather than judge the whole story by the darkness of one moment.
The third and fourth stanzas expose the spiritual burden of trying to control what lies beyond human power. The argument turns from the sinking heart to God’s sovereignty, contrasting limited human rule with the conviction that creation remains under divine government.
The fifth and sixth stanzas deepen that surrender. Trust means allowing God to choose the way and admitting that divine counsel can exceed present understanding. The text therefore does not explain every hardship; it teaches humility about what can be known while preserving confidence in God’s wisdom.
The final two stanzas change from exhortation to prayer and testimony. The community acknowledges weakness and asks for strengthening, then looks toward a life-and-death confession of God’s faithfulness. The hymn ends not with a solved circumstance but with a strengthened posture of trust.
Theological Reflection
The hymn’s central doctrine is divine providence: God is not an absent observer but the Lord who sustains, governs, and guides creation. Gerhardt and Wesley therefore place the believer’s security not in the ability to predict events but in the conviction that God’s wisdom and care exceed human sight. Providence here is pastoral doctrine. It addresses the frightened heart by directing attention from the limits of human control to the faithfulness of God.
That trust is neither passivity nor denial. The hymn repeatedly assumes real trouble—fear, tears, darkness, weakness, and uncertainty—while calling the believer to wait, pray, and relinquish the demand to rule the outcome. Christian surrender is thus an act of faith rather than resignation: the worshiper entrusts the future to God precisely because God is confessed as wise, powerful, and attentive.
The closing movement turns individual consolation into communal confession. Human weakness becomes a matter for prayer, and trust becomes testimony that can be maintained through life and death. Theologically, this gives the hymn an important balance: providence is not only an explanation offered to sufferers but a relationship of dependence in which the church asks for strength, waits for God’s timing, and bears witness to divine care.
Church Impact
“Give to the Winds Thy Fears” has had a long and unusually broad hymnal life. Hymnary’s text authority currently indexes the text in more than five hundred hymnals, evidence of extensive circulation rather than proof that every listed community sang it frequently. The hymn crossed the denominational boundary already implicit in its history: a Lutheran text by Gerhardt entered English Methodism through Wesley’s translation and later appeared in Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, and other collections.
Editors have transmitted the hymn in multiple forms. Some retained a longer portion of Wesley’s translation, while others selected only four stanzas or modernized pronouns and other wording. The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) offers a four-stanza form with FESTAL SONG; The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) uses ST. BRIDE; and The Book of Praise (1997) pairs the text with ST. GEORGE. These examples show both continuity of the words and freedom in their musical setting.
Its recurring placement under themes such as providence, trust, courage, tribulation, and funeral or memorial worship reflects the text’s pastoral function. The hymn has endured because it gives congregations language for fear without allowing fear the final word: suffering is acknowledged, prayer is invited, and confidence is directed toward God’s sustaining rule.
Musical Notes
The text is in Short Meter, 6.6.8.6, which has allowed it to circulate with a number of established hymn tunes. The tune named in this record, ST. GEORGE, was composed by Henry John Gauntlett and is dated 1848 in Hymnary’s tune authority. Later hymnals pair ST. GEORGE with “Give to the Winds Thy Fears,” including The Book of Praise (1997). This pairing is therefore later than both Gerhardt’s 1653 German text and Wesley’s 1739 English translation.
ST. GEORGE must be distinguished from FESTAL SONG. William Henry Walter composed FESTAL SONG, another Short Meter tune, and The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) pairs that tune with a four-stanza selection of this text. Samuel Howard’s ST. BRIDE is another important setting; The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), among others, uses it with the hymn. Hymnary’s text authority notes that no one tune accounts for more than ten percent of the indexed hymnals containing the text, so the hymn has a genuinely diverse tune tradition.
For congregational planning, the practical starting point is therefore the specific hymnal or score in use rather than an assumption that one melody is universal. ST. GEORGE, FESTAL SONG, and ST. BRIDE all fit the Short Meter structure, but they represent different historical pairings and should retain their correct composer attributions.
Application
- Name specific fears before God rather than treating anxiety as something that must be hidden before prayer.
- Use Psalm 37:5 as a practice of entrusting decisions and uncertain outcomes to God while still acting faithfully in the responsibilities that are clear.
- Distinguish trust from passivity: waiting for God can include prayer, wise action, counsel, and patience without demanding immediate control of the result.
- Offer the hymn in pastoral care, funerals, or seasons of communal uncertainty where its language of tears, waiting, and sustaining providence can be heard without minimizing suffering.
- Let the final movement from private fear to shared confession shape congregational prayer: ask God to strengthen the weak, then bear witness together to God’s faithfulness.
Discussion Questions
- How does Psalm 37:5 function differently when we know that Gerhardt built the German hymn around it as an acrostic?
- What is the difference between trusting God’s providence and assuming that difficult circumstances will quickly disappear?
- Why might Wesley’s decision to translate Gerhardt freely, rather than preserve the German acrostic, have helped the text work in English congregational song?
- How does the hymn move from individual fear toward communal prayer and testimony?
- What changes when the same Short Meter text is sung to ST. GEORGE, FESTAL SONG, or ST. BRIDE, and why is correct tune attribution important?
Teaching Tips
- Begin with Psalm 37:5 and explain that it is the documented heading and acrostic framework of Gerhardt’s original hymn, not simply a modern proof-text added afterward.
- Show the translation history in three stages: Gerhardt’s twelve-stanza German original in 1653, Wesley’s sixteen-stanza English rendering in 1739, and the later separation and abridgment of the portion beginning “Give to the winds thy fears.”
- Correct the common tune confusion explicitly: ST. GEORGE is by Henry John Gauntlett, while William Henry Walter wrote FESTAL SONG; both tunes have been used with this text in later hymnals.
- Use the hymn pastorally without implying that anxiety disappears instantly. Invite worshipers to identify what faithful waiting, prayer, wise action, and mutual support may look like during unresolved difficulty.
- When teaching from a modern hymnal, compare its stanza selection with the eight-stanza 1739 excerpt so singers can see how editors have shaped the form they know.
Sources
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — “Give to the winds thy fears,” translation and publication history
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — “Befiehl du deine Wege,” 1653 publication, Psalm 37:5 heading, and acrostic
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Duke Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition — John and Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), modernized transcription, pp. 141–144, “Trust in Providence. From the German.”
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Deutsche Biographie — Paul Gerhardt, life, ministry, works, and publication history
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General Commission on Archives and History, The United Methodist Church — John Wesley biography
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — Henry John Gauntlett biography
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Hymnary.org — ST. GEORGE (Gauntlett), composer, meter, date, and hymn instances
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Hymnary.org — “Give to the Winds Thy Fears” text authority, meter, public-domain status, hymnal circulation, and tune diversity
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Hymnary.org — The United Methodist Hymnal 1989, no. 129, Gerhardt/Wesley text paired with FESTAL SONG by William H. Walter
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World English Bible Classic — Psalm 37
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World English Bible Classic — Psalm 55
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World English Bible Classic — Romans 8
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World English Bible Classic — 1 Peter 5
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World English Bible Classic — Isaiah 41
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U.S. Copyright Office — Circular 15A, Duration of Copyright
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Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines — Copyright, terms of protection
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Supreme Court E-Library — Republic Act No. 8293, Section 213, term of copyright protection
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