Ever since I was a little girl I have loved these lines
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to the leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.”
I love those lines because they are so true!
Singing on a Sunday morning, surrounded by fellow believers, moved by beautiful music, my heart swells with love for the Lord and I am over -whelmed with His goodness and grace.
He is such a good God!
Then Monday morning comes…
I didn’t sleep the best, my kids wake up earlier than I was ready for them to, and life isn’t perfect. And I find myself snapping and cranky, irritable and impatient, turning to anything but God for comfort and sustenance.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it! Prone to leave the God I love.
Thankfully the first part of that verse begins this way:
“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, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for They courts above.”
He is such a grace-filled God that He accepts our praise on Sunday, even though He knows, and we know, Monday is coming.
But one day, believer, we will live in the Sundays and we will no longer be prone to wander but we will instead be face to face with the God we love. Our hearts will be overwhelmed, our senses will be filled with His presence. There will be nothing sweeter than the smile on the face of our Father in heaven.
Haste that day, Lord God, haste that day.
But until then, may He who called us be faithful to hold us. And may we, fellow believer, be faithful in return. May His goodness bind our hearts to His and may His love compel us to run the race set before us as we look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. May He hold us as we live in the Mondays.
I love this. And I love this song, particularly the honesty in it. I remember speaking to a pastor some years back about a song we used to sing that had the phrase “I’ll never wander, knowing you love me, knowing you died for my sins” and saying I had a theological objection because it was fundamentally untrue. His response was to sing it as a prayer. I just stopped singing that line. Come Thou Fount has always been to me an affirmation that this is normal, as well as a reassurance of the one waiting with open arms at the end of my wandering. On an unrelated note, I’ll be preaching on Ebenezer as a New Year’s sermon. #letsstopchangingsongsandteachtheminstead
I love your writing and your heart for God. Keep on!