George Harrison – My Sweet Lord, plus free printable stickers!!

Happy new year, amigos, and welcome to another fandoms-as-Gospel post! This month I’m studying the nature and attributes of God and how we can know Him as best as possible this side of eternity. In typical fashion, my brain has connected three very different songs with each part of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this post is the first of them. Enjoy!

Fandom: “I just wanna know You/ I really wanna go with You/ I just wanna see you, Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord…” – George Harrison

Verses: Psalm 145, Acts 17:22-28, Micah 6:8, Jeremiah 9:23-24, 2 Corinthians 3: 12-18

Truth: The mighty, powerful, incomprehensible nature of God the Father makes me feel small-in-a-good-way, and I can humbly and boldly ask to know and understand Him more.

Fandom: “My Sweet Lord”

I just wanna know you/ I really wanna go with you/ I just wanna know you Lord, but it takes so long my Lord, My sweet lord…

“My Sweet Lord,” George Harrison (maybe)

This song is one of the *aesthetic* soothing acoustic guitar and soft vocal songs from the 60s and 70s. It’s very pleasing to the eardrums, and the lyrics are quite interesting as well. Looking into the backstory of the song, George Harrison (of Beetles fame) describes it as addressing the universal desire of lots of different belief systems to know the Higher Power of their belief. This theme is expressed first with Judeo-Christian terms like “Lord” and later with Hindu and Eastern terms like “hare krishna.” I looked further into this part of the song, and it turns out that it comes from a prayer to Krishna and other names of principal Hindu deities. I found out more about the meanings of specific lyrics here : )

Here’s an article from Cheatsheet Entertainment that has more insight into the background and meaning of “My Sweet Lord”.

Some critics and commentators have described “My Sweet Lord” as an appeal to religious tolerance and pluralism, while others have simply stated that Harrison wrote it as a universal worship song, pointing to the similarities between Judeo-Christian and Hindu worship. While I personally am convinced that the God of the Bible is the only true God, I also think of these verses when I hear this song:

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects.
“For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands;
nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all [people] life and breath and all things;
and He made from one [man] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find [Him,] though He is not far from each one of us;
for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’

Acts 17:22-28

These verses speak to God’s “common grace” that is given to all humans created in His image. If God really does want “all people to come to repentance,” (2 Peter 3:9) and He really is all-knowing and all-powerful, then I believe that it is possible for Him to speak to our hearts and minds through many different channels.

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Love to listen to music that feels like candy for your ears? You’ll 😊🎧💖 these posts:

• Taylor Swift – Invisible string
• Owl City – This is the Future
• Arijit Singh + Shloke Lal – Rihaa
• The Paper Kites – Bloom

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If you’re looking for lots of insight on who God is and what He’s like, I highly recommend this book by Jen Wilkin! I’ll be posting a review of it soon : ).

Verses

Since this song is already a call to worship, I decided to focus more on the feeling that it gives me. “My Sweet Lord” gives me the impression of sitting in a place that makes me feel small in a good way, like a beautiful cathedral or mountainside or field under the stars. The fact that it was made in the 70s also gives me the impression of warm, earthy tones like the kind you might see in a canyon in the Southwestern US.

Here are the verses that I like to reflect on as I listen to this song:

 I will exalt You, my God, the King, And I will bless Your name forever and ever.

Every day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable.

Psalm 145:1-3 NASB20

He has told you, mortal one, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8 NASB20

This is what the LORD says: “Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches;
but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 NASB20

Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in [our] speech,
and [we are] not like Moses, [who] used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away.
But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.
But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts;
but whenever [someone] turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is freedom.
But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:12-18 NASB20

This article from Blue Letter Bible describes both God’s infinite, incomprehensible nature and our ability to know some things about Him in more detail and with better words : )

Application

In response to the verses that I found in connection with this song, I wrote out three “I will” statements that will help me to apply the Truth to my life in a practical way:

• I will spend time getting to know God as my Father by talking to Him and reading His Word
• I will trust that he is a good and loving Father, even when He allows things to happen that don’t feel or seem good to me
• I will humbly ask God the Father, the great and incomprehensible Creator of all the things, to show me His presence and His glory

My journal pages

Here are the pages that I created in the original Fangirl: Fulfilled devotional journal back in June of 2022. As you can see, there are minimal supplies used, and I wasn’t super focused making my handwriting look pretty. There was too much goodness that I wanted to get down on paper!! And I was also in quarantine part of that time and didn’t have all of my pens and things with me 😅

Free printable “Sweet Lord” journaling stickers

Thank you so much for staying with me up to this point!! As a reward for reading this post, here are some free printable journaling stickers to go with the aesthetic of “My Sweet Lord”. I took inspiration from the gorgeous, make-you-feel-small nature scenes for this sticker set, specifically the canyons that have the twisty rock formations (yes, that’s a technical term lol) and the rusty reds and golds. The idea is that when we look at all the nature things that are so beautiful and sublime, we can’t help but know/feel that God is real and want to know Him in any way that we can. Enjoy!

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed this exploration of the song “My Sweet Lord” that was made famous by George Harrison. What have you learned about what it means to know God as a Father?

Happy fangirling!