The ultimate aim and purpose of this book is to give us some insight into dealing with the negative and positive vicissitudes of life and how to cope with them. It seeks to remind us that in times of joy, fortune and success, we should celebrate those moments with grateful hearts. We should learn not to take them for granted but to claim them as blessings, count them and capitalize on them. On the other hand, when distress confronts us, when trouble engulfs us, we should first be conscious of the fact that while trouble and calamity may be inevitable, that they are neither fatal nor final. Misfortune is not a permanent feature of life. It is transient, as one of our psalms reminds us ,"heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning."

Wren discusses the thorny issues involving congregational singing today: the indispensable nature of public worship; contemporary worship music; the lyrics of different types of congregational songs, such as choruses, hymns, chants and ritual songs; and the importance of using hymn lyrics as poetry. He shows why hymn lyrics are altered throughout time and how they illustrate theology.