Lyrics
Forth in Thy name, O Lord, I go,
My daily labor to pursue;
Thee, only Thee, resolved to know
In all I think, or speak, or do.
The task Thy wisdom hath assigned,
O let me cheerfully fulfill;
In all my works Thy presence find,
And prove Thy good and perfect will.
Preserve me from my calling's snare,
And hide my simple heart above,
Above the thorns of choking care,
The gilded baits of worldly love.
Thee may I set at my right hand,
Whose eyes mine inmost substance see,
And labor on at Thy command,
And offer all my works to Thee.
Give me to bear Thy easy yoke,
And every moment watch and pray,
And still to things eternal look,
And hasten to Thy glorious day.
For Thee delightfully employ
Whate'er Thy bounteous grace hath given;
And run my course with even joy,
And closely walk with Thee to Heaven.
Public domain hymn text (1749), based on Psalm 71:16.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Charles Wesley wrote "Forth in Thy Name, O Lord, I Go" in six stanzas, published in 1749 in Hymns and Sacred Poems, Volume I, under the heading "Before Work" in a section titled "Hymns for Believers." Later editions, including John Wesley's own 1780 hymnbook for the Methodist societies, dropped the third and fifth stanzas, a trimming that has carried through to most modern hymnals since.
For Charles Wesley, faith was never confined to formal worship; the whole of daily life, including its most ordinary labor, fell within its scope. This hymn puts that conviction into direct, practical language — not a prayer for escape from work, but a prayer that the work itself, however plain, might be done entirely in Christ's presence and for His purposes.
The nineteenth-century preacher Phillips Brooks, commenting on hymns of exactly this kind, wrote that one should "never fear to bring the sublimest motive to the smallest duty, and the most infinite comfort to the smallest trouble" — a description that fits this hymn closely, since its whole argument is that no task is too minor to be brought fully under that motive.
Wesley's style throughout leans on repetition and restatement, returning to the same central idea from several angles across the six stanzas — presence in labor, protection from care, offering of work, watchfulness, eternal perspective, and finally joy — each verse another attempt to say the same consecration in slightly different words.
