The other day (or was it the other week, or the other month? time just goes too fast!), I overheard one of my kids saying to someone else in the family that I didn't used to be the way I am now. Oh, ugh. It was nearly unenduringly painful to hear those words. And I started praying right then and there that God would show me how to get back to being the person I used to be--a person of relatively consistent faith, and joy, and optimism.
I've been going back and reading some of my own older blog posts and they've been blessing me and reminding me of where I used to be. Isn't God great? I had no idea how much of a treasure this blog would be to me when I began it years ago, with the idea that it would someday hopefully be of some value to my children.
This story reminds me of the person (Robert Robinson) who wrote the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". I remember hearing that when he was older, he had wandered from God. In his later years, he met a lady who found out he had written that hymn, and told him how much she wished she had his faith. And he replied to her how much he wished he still had the faith he had had when he wrote the song.
Reading the third verse of the song especially lets me know that Mr. Robinson was aware of the danger that was lurking in his own heart. And I believe that God faithfully answered the prayers that were housed in this song. Even though Mr. Robinson had a crisis of faith, I believe that at the end of his life, God restored his faith and joy in his salvation.
Here are the treasured words of this favorite hymn:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
*******
Amen!
