Let me take you back to an evangelistic meeting in the early 1920s at Trinity Evangelical Church in Shamokin, Pennsylvania (yep, it’s an actual town). A man who, in the opinion of those present at the meeting, “was under the influence of alcohol” came forward at the altar call to give his life to Christ. People in the church gathered to pray for him and told him of Jesus, who was mighty to save. Despite his inebriated condition, the man prayed with remarkable clarity, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, come in to stay.” Harry D. Clarke (1888-1957), the song leader at the meeting, overheard the man’s prayer and set his words to music. He wrote the refrain first and later expanded it into a gospel song in 1927. Each verse begins, “Come into my heart, blessed Jesus,” which explains why the song was titled “Into my heart.” It’s a phrase that repeats eighteen times in this four-verse song. While the hymn has fallen out of favor in recent years, the refrain is still sung in children’s Sunday school. I can close my eyes and still recall our teacher leading us in singing, “Come in today, come in to stay.”
Harry Clarke was orphaned at an early age in Wales. He ran away from an orphanage and worked at sea for ten years. When he emigrated to America, he was converted to Christ and attended the Moody Bible Institute. He later served as a song leader for the evangelist Billy Sunday and composed songs to use in evangelistic campaigns. Jesus said, “Except you become as a child, you will never enter the kingdom of God” (Mt. 18.3). The refrain of Harry’s song leads us to pray with childlike faith: