This hymn is summarized by the verse “The Son of God, who loved me” (Gal. 2:20). Both words and music were written by George Beverly Shea, who was born February 1, 1909, the fourth of eight children, to a Wesleyan Methodist minister and his wife in Winchester, Ontario, Canada. They named him after the famous preacher, Beverly Carradine. At age 5 he showed a keen interest in music, and would watch his mother’s hands move over the piano keys. Soon he was picking out melodies on the keyboard.

After a move to Houghton, New York, a severe tonsil infection kept George out of school, and his mother taught him the third and fourth grades. He learned to play the harmonica and violin, but was too shy to play for anyone but his mother. The high school years were spent at Annesley College, where he sang bass in a male quarter. In 1928, at age 19, George entered Houghton College, played violin in the orchestra, and sand bass in the glee club, but he stayed for one only one year of training.

When the family moved to Jersey City, he took a job as assistant to the medical examiner for the MONY Insurance Company in New York City. He studied voice privately, and sand on Sundays in his father’s church. He won an audition to sing on Fred Allen’s radio show, presenting “Go Down, Moses,” but did not win the prize. A big turning point in his life came when he won an audition to be one of the famous Lynn Murray Singers, but he turned it down because of questionable language in a song they asked him to sing. In his book Then Sings My Soul he says: “Some years earlier I had vowed to let God open the doorknob in sight. I reasoned, and still do, that if God had some new direction in mind, He would speak to me about it— if I made it a point to listen. It is a principle I have employed throughout life.”

For five years Shea served at WMBI, the radio voice of Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. His varied responsibilities included announcing, newscasting, script writing, hosting a classical music program, administration, and of course, singing. In 1943 a big opportunity came, and he resigned his job at WMBI to take over the soloist job on Club Time, a 15-minute daily broadcast of hymns on WCFL, sponsored by Club Aluminum. Don Hustad was the organist, and Jack Halloran choir director. George also sang on Songs in the Night, a broadcast from Billy Graham’s Village Church, Western Springs, Illinois, which was the beginning of their long associating together. He moved from Chicago and bought a little house in Western Springs, where he and his wife, Erna, have lived ever since. He studied voice in Chicago with Gino Monaco, who was able to help him with diction and interpretation.

The first big Billy Graham crusade came in November 1947 in Charlotte, North Carolina. For many years Shea would sing for the meetings, then fly back to his radio commitments in Chicago, making the round trip each week. He once said that O’Hare Airport was almost like his second home! It was after the Los Angeles crusade when Stuart Hamblen (see SDAH 632) was converted that the Billy Graham crusades gained worldwide notoriety. Huge crowds filled arenas and football stadiums,  and the crusades went on radio and television. In the spring of 1951 Shea made his first record for RCA with the Hugo Winterhalter Orchestra. A later recording, Southern Favorites, with the Anita Kerr Singers, won a Grammy Award. In 1966 he was given a gold record by RCA, in recognition of the fact that his long-play albums had reached a sale of more that 1 million copies.

In writing the introduction for Shea’s autobiography, Billy Graham said, “The thing that impressed me most about Bev from the very beginning of our long association was the life he lived behind the scened. His humility was genuine. His walk with God was sincere. He really meant what he sang! … He sings a sermon… He is in a class by himself when it comes to worshipful singing.”

At this writing George Beverly Shea is 77 and still traveling, singing with Billy Graham, going to witness wherever the Lord leads. On a recent appearance for George Schuler at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Califorina, his voice was still sure and the song, a simple one, aimed straight at people’s hearts.

Shea also composed the tune for SDAH 327, “I’d Rather Have Jesus.”