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.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
By: Robert Robinson, 1735-90

Listen as you read.  This version from In Reverence by David Tolk.

How true is that!!  His kindness still or yet pursues me, though I regularly or routinely live as though I have no awareness of it.  My mortal tongue, limited by the residue of my sinful nature, simply can not do a very good job of telling of God’s goodness to me.

But that does not give me an excuse not to try.

No Excuses

Even though I may not be very good at proclaim or declaring God’s goodness to me, I am determined to try just the same.  And why wouldn’t I?  After all, the Good Shepherd keeps coming after me, even though I routinely choose to ignore His voice and go my own way.  I tend to be such a stupid sheep sometimes.  Though I know Jesus has a much better plan than anything I could come up with, I am very good at wandering away from His.

Ultimately, I really can not even do a very good job of telling how faithful His pursuing love is, even when I try.  There are limitations that are simply a part of this existence, but that is all going to change, One Day.  As Robinson puts it, “till death shall loose me”, or rather release me from sin’s grip and resultant weakness.

One Day

I will be much better at it One Day.  And how I long for that Day.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, this life has many wonderful things, albeit shadows of what God has in store for us.  This should have the effect of making us long for the day we finally see Him, our Shepherd, face-to-face.  That in addition to the fact that for the first time we will have the full capacity to offer Him praise, coupled with an overwhelming desire to do so.

For these reasons, and so many more, I echo the words from Revelation 22:20, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Good Shepherd, help me long for the day when I will be able to praise you with my lips and life as my soul wants to do today.  My inability to offer You the worship You deserve reminds me of my need for You to continue to pursue my ever-wandering heart.  Thank You Jesus for Your great love.

Does your heart long to sing better praise that you can these days?  What thoughts come to mind as you consider how Jesus, pursued, and keeps pursuing you?  Please share as others my be encouraged by the fact they are not alone in this tension created by praising poorly.

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 3 

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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.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
By: Robert Robinson, 1735-90

Listen as you read.  This version from In Reverence by David Tolk.

You.  He wants to hear you.  And not just hear you, but see you.  You see your life is a song.  Actually, it is a song of praise.  Your life boldly declares what you believe is worthy of worship, even when your lips are not moving and there is no sound coming from you.

You see, you may not be a great singer, actually you may be pretty terrible, but God wants to hear your voice lifted in praise.  He wants to see your life spent to bring Him glory.  He does not “hear” as our ears hear.  As C.S. Lewis put it in his brief essay, “On Church Music”, God accepts our offering like a parent accepts the artwork of their child, not on artistic merit, but intent.  The heart is the issue.  [You can read the entire article here.]

Notice the hymn writer asks God to “tune my heart”, not “tune my voice”.  After all, since the dawn of time He has heard the praises of heavenly beings, so how can my voice compete.  Every day His creation pours forth praise, so where would my vocal chords stack up?  Thankfully, His favorite song is that of the redeemed.

I love how theBrooklyn Tabernacle Choir puts it in there song,  Favorite Song of All.

“But His favorite song of all, is the song of the redeemed,
When lost sinners now made clean, lift their voices loud strong…”

I hope you’ll sing, but I really hope you will determine to live your life before God, in response to His redeeming love, in such a way that it is music to His ears, even if the pitch might not be to your neighbors.

So what will you do today to tune your heart, or demonstrate to God you want Him to tune it?  Comment below for someone make be inspired by your decision.  Tuning takes time, and can only be done by adjusting untuned notes back to some standard.  Our standard is His perfect love.  Consider again today His never-ending streams of mercy and His redeeming love, and let Him tune your heart.

Like it so far, this journey toward greater resonance?  Click here to move on to the next installment now.  Or simply go back to our Home page and search under blogs where you can access all of them anytime!

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 1 

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My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the world abroad
The honors of Thy name.

O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
By: Charles Wesley, 1707-1788

Listen as you read.  This version is features the tune that is more often used in the UK.

There is such a different energy in this version which features a tune less common in the US.  I think it really matches this stanza.  That is true whether you see this as a prayer or a statement.

Statement or Prayer

I keep re-reading this and keep coming up with the same two possibilities.  At first, I think this is a statement.  My Gracious Master and my God assist me.  To do what?  To proclaim.  Yes and Amen! God does assist us to proclaim His name.  If he did not, we could not possibly adequately spread the honors of His name to the entire earth.  It seems like a statement.

That is until you understand it with the last verse, which by the way is what each line of a hymn stanza is actually called.  “The honors of Thy name.”  Up to this point it seems like it could be statement declaring that God actually does help us.  This resonates with us because He does.  However, I believe this last line makes it a prayer.

Why is this important?  Because most of the other stanzas are actually horizontal.  They are directed from one worshipper to another, or at least another prospective worshipper.  We may examine that aspect to some of those other stanzas later, we simply have not gotten to them yet.  This stanza is unusual in the context of this hymn because it is directed vertically.  It is sung directly to God, making an appeal for His assistance.  The vertical direction is important because in it we may learn a valuable lesson.

Help Me, Jesus!

If we are going to have any  real hope of proclaiming the glory of our God, we are going to need His help!  This represents the key tuning element for this installment.  Seems simple and straightforward, but let me ask you what at first may seem like a simple question.  When was the last time you prayed and asked God to assist you in telling the world about Him?  Of course this is not limited to praising Him in song, but I also do not believe it excludes help with that.

Directions for Singing

And Charles Wesley’s brother John offered some help from His perspective which he intended would illicit better signing.  His seven principles were written for a particular volume of hymns, but many can be applied in a broader context.  That is certainly true of this one.

4. Sing Lustily – and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half-dead or half-asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sang the songs of Satan.

Ouch!  That is a strong indictment to lift up energetic voices in praises.  If we sang the songs of Satan without shame, certainly we should sing the songs of Jesus entirely free of shame.

So how are you doing with that?  Do you sing lustily?  If not, why not?  When was the last time you asked God specifically to help you sing?  Have you ever asked Him?

Tune your heart to sing His praise, by asking Him to assist You spread through all the earth abroad the honors of His name.  And then, make haste to find a group of worshippers to which to lend Your newly loosed tongue.

Happy Tuning!

Jesus, thank You for Your willingness to assist me in proclaiming You name.  Forgive me for not asking sooner or more often.  I confess I need Your help to do this and so I am asking.   Help me, Jesus, to proclaim Your name, when I am singing, and when I am not.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

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O For a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer’s praise!
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!

O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
By: Charles Wesley, 1707-1788

Listen as you read.  This version is from Together for the Gospel.

I just love hearing many voices lifted together in praise.  I love being one of those voices.  I suppose those are probably things you enjoy as well since you have arrived here and are reading this.

But what if you could not sing at all?  If this was your experience for a season, especially if you were able to sing before, then you would be glad to be able to lift your voice in praise again.  I can say this with confidence because it was my experience.

Pleurisy

This hymn was written by Charles Wesley to commemorate the one year anniversary of his healing from pleurisy.  Pleurisy is inflammation of the tissues that line the lungs and chest cavity.  It causes chest pain that worsens during breathing, and generally hurts more with deeper breathes like those required to sing.  It is a painful condition that can be treated with anti-inflammatories, pain relievers and rest.

I am not sure beyond rest what other care might have been available to Wesley, but I availed myself of all three of these and then some.  I actually developed an infection which required surgery to remove the infectious material in my chest cavity.  Three days after that initial procedure undetected internal bleeding nearly cost me my life.  A second emergency procedure was conducted to rectify that issue.

Needless to say, as I lay in ICU I was so thankful to be alive that I struggled to take in enough breath to quietly sing praise to God.  I had to praise Him for I felt my survival was a triumph of HIs grace.  If I had known the story of this hymn I would glad have sung it, but I do indeed vividly remember singing Amazing Grace to God who had again “saved a wretch like me”.

I Would Praise Him with Them All

Wesley had become ill while studying in London with his brother John under Moravian scholar Peter Boehler.  Boehler was quoted to have said,

“Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Him with them all”.

Though we know this hymn by the words that so aptly capture that thought, they actually served as the seventh stanza of the original eighteen stanzas.  Most hymnals have shortened the hymn to between 6-8 stanzas, which is not uncommon for many hymns.  As you would imagine there are some good stanzas which did not make the cut.

This one comes for the one before the one the calls the deaf to hear His voice.

He speaks, – and, listening to his voice,
New life the dead receive;
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice;
The humble poor believe.

This is a great call to the world to worship.

Look unto him, ye nations; own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.

This is a great concise declaration of the Gospel.

See all your sins on Jesus laid;
The Lamb of God was slain;
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.

You can’t really “praise Him with them all” if you don’t even know they exist.

…Until It’s Gone

Of course we do not miss those stanzas if we never knew they were a part of this great hymn.  But this is like the inverse of the saying “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”  More like, “You don’t realize what you are missing until it arrives.”  Not quite the same, other than relating to an awareness of something possessed or dispossessed.

For me, it was not really being able to sing or even take a deep breath, in those days leading up to the diagnosis and first procedure,and certainly between the two.  I did not realize how precious using one tongue to praise my Redeemer.  Loosing the ability to do so, even for a few days, helped me to realize what a gift being able to praise truly is.  I am certain that realization is a part of what inspired Wesley to pen these words.

So my question to help you tune today is, “Are you using everything at your disposal to give praise to God?”  Whether musical ability or some other talent or skill, are you making the most of them to declare His glory?  Wesley gives us words to commit to using a thousand tongues if we had them, but maybe we need to make certain we are maximizing each of the ones we currently possess.  If so, then go ahead and ask for more.  If not, then it is definitely time to do some tuning.

Happy Tuning!

Jesus, thank You for giving me the tongue I have, and every other ability to render the praise that is due your Name.  Had I a thousand tongues, they would not be enough to magnify Your excellencies.  Even still, help me to make the most of every ability I possess, and graciously add to them according to Your will, that I may use them each to exalt You.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

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