Concerning a particular situation or a specific set of circumstances some might said, ‘What a coincidence!’ But how do we know if something is coincidental (lucky) or if it’s more likely providential? Often we look at life and see it as lucky or unlucky, black or white and yet all the while we might be missing the point. Perhaps we come up short of giving God the credit He deserves for working in our lives. Perhaps we need to be better about recognizing and seeing that God’s hands are working in ways we can not see. (Remember the song “God Will Make a Way.”) After all, don’t we pray for Him to be with us?
Consider two Christian song writers from this century; Chisholm and Sanderson. T.O. Chisholm was a well 
renowned American song writer during the early 1900’s. Many of his 1,200 works of Christian poetry have found their way into some of our hymnals. In 1960, at the age of 94, Chisholm passed from this life. His works are well documented but we’ll consider one that was born on a lonely, dark night.
Another well noted writer and composer from the same era was L.O. Sanderson. Sanderson was a preacher of the gospel as well a noted musician. He is recognized as one who wrote the words and music to many of our gospel songs. He was born in 1901 and passed 
away in 1992, at the age of 91. Like Chisholm, Sanderson penned the music to one particular song in the dark hours of the night. Perhaps it’s not surprising that these two men combined their talents to produce some ‘greats songs of the church.’
It was recorded that one night around midnight, Sanderson was working alone in his office. He had been preparing his sermon for the coming Sunday morning, but a new, specific tune kept running through his mind. To satisfy his musical creativity, he stopped his study and jotted down the musical notes. In a few short weeks he sent the music to his friend, T.O. Chisholm, and inquired of him if had any poetry to fit the scales. As Chisholm reviewed the work of his friend, he found the musical bars (the meter, 11.10.11.10) were a perfect fit for the poetry he penned, “Be with me, Lord – I can not live without Thee, I dare not try to take one step alone, I cannot bear the loads of life, unaided, I need Thy strength to lean myself upon…”
As the two friends compared notes and asked each other questions about this specific work, they found that they both had similar circumstances surrounding their endeavors. Both were working late one night (after midnight to be precise), and both were preoccupied with some specific words, a specific tune, floating within their mind. They were struggling to accomplish one task while trying to embrace this new song. And yet both were unable to be resolution to their struggle until they put their music, poetry, to paper. The extraordinary piece of this puzzle was that both men were creating this song of praise and affirmation some 1000’s of miles apart. Could it have been a coincidence or just plain lucky? Was this just a great accident of hymnology or was our God, the Great Composer, at work in creating a hymn for His people to sing for the ages?