The Hallelujah He Could Not Hold Back

In the autumn of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. His health had failed him — a stroke years earlier had briefly paralyzed his right arm. His London operas were flopping badly. Creditors circled. Debtors' prison loomed as a real possibility.

Then came an invitation from Dublin charity organizers asking for a new oratorio. Handel took the libretto — a collection of Scripture passages about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ — and retreated to his London study. In an astonishing twenty-four days, he composed the entirety of Messiah, rarely leaving his room, barely eating, surrounded by manuscript pages covered in his urgent handwriting.

When his servant brought him meals, he found Handel weeping at his desk. After completing the "Hallelujah" chorus, Handel reportedly told a friend, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

Handel did not compose Messiah from a place of security. He composed it from a place of surrender. He had nothing left to protect — no reputation, no savings, no certainty about tomorrow. And in that emptiness, something extraordinary poured through him.

Trust rarely feels triumphant when we first enter it. It feels more like Handel's cold study in September — uncertain, desperate, hands trembling. But sometimes, when we have exhausted every other option, we discover that the Almighty was waiting to work in the space we finally cleared for Him.