Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Amazing Grace
By: John Newton, 1725-1807

Listen as you read.  This version is from Sacred Piano by Paul Cardall.

Well, I think it sounds like a lot of different things, but I would agree with John Newton that it’s always sweet, and when rightly considered should always leave me amazed.   So why is it that I tend to not be very amazed, and often do not realize just how sweet grace is?  I suppose some of that has to do with the fact that I don’t realize just how lost or blind I was,  and tend to still be when I do not live in a conscious awareness of Grace, of which my Savior is the embodiment, but I will leave that for Thursday Thoughts.  See Lost and Blind, Not a Very Enviable Position.

I was attending a church service when I first heard it.  Sitting there in that pew I was wrestling with what I had heard before and what I was hearing.  I had been struggling to reconcile my desire for understanding with my need for faith.  Grace reconciled this.

A few weeks later I was baptized.  But before I went under the water, I stood and sang this new song I had learned which expressed really well how I felt about the transaction that had taken place, and the new position I had before God.  You guessed it, “Amazing Grace”.

I want to encourage you to consider what it sounded like to you when you first heard it.  I know the next stanza speaks about how precious it appeared, but for now I want you to remember and imagine what it sounded like.

Newton says “how sweet the sound”.  The juxtaposition of sweetness with wretchedness gives us a glimpse into the contrast that was apparent to him .  My inclination is to think about something tangible like candy versus garbage, but I want us to stick with the analogy of choice by our writer.

Grace Aids Intonation

If grace is sweet, then lostness is wretched.  But what might be our musical parallel?  If grace is tuned, then wretchedness is detuned, or untuned.  See where I am going with this?

This analogy will resonate within the hearts of the musicians especially, but I am certain it is not lost by most others.  Try to imagine a clear sounding note on a piano.  Did you know that middle C has two strings that are tuned in unison?  Old pianos which are not maintained have that detuned honky-tonk sound.  A tuned middle C versus an untuned middle C are a reasonable example of sweetness and wretchedness.

When a piano note is not tuned to unison, there is a dissonance within a single pitch.  It makes many of us cringe to hear that terrible sound.  When it is tuned to unison, that dissonance disappears.  That lack of dissonance is called consonance, but suffice it to say, it sounds good.  Here is a simple example of these differing sounds.

Consonance versus Dissonance

In short, grace sounds sweet.  Grace reconciles the dissonance in our souls.  It may be better said that grace creates the consonance our souls crave, then we spend the rest of this life trying to maintain that sound.  That sweet, sweet sound.

So how do you do that?  Maintain that consonance.  Well, that’s the journey we are going on together, but it begins by acknowledging we know what it sounds like, because after all that is the only way to tune ourselves to it.

Holy Spirit, the Strobotuner

The memory that comes to mind to me is standing if front a tuner in my high school band room trying to get the needle to go straight up, or the bars to stop moving, something like the one pictured above.  There are digital versions that simulate that on our smartphones today, and maybe even do a much better job.  Any musician will tell you playing in tune is something that you really have to work hard at doing, developing your internal sense of tuning, and always listening to the other sounds around you.

The same is true of the spiritual life.  The Holy Spirit is our Strobotuner.  We have to come back to Him to make sure we are in tune.  We have to work at it, developing our inner sense of how to stay in tune, and listening to what God is saying around us as well, constantly making adjustments because our flesh is prone to pull us out of tune.

But then there’s Grace.  Grace gently shows us we are out of tune.  Grace tunes us.  Grace helps us learn how to stay in tune, and helps us realize when we are out of tune.  Grace is sweet.

Holy Spirit, thank You for helping me hear grace in the first place.   Thank You for cultivating in me a desire for consonance, and helping me identify the dissonance in my life, and my inclination to create more apart from You.  Tune my ears to hear Grace around me and in me everyday, and enable me to choose to align the music of my life to it more and more.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

Please comment below and share if you have found this helpful in your journey of being more resonant.

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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.

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

“Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty we are free at last!” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Taken from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, the clarion call of the Civil Rights movement, this phrase foreshadows an even bigger freedom.  The blight of slavery, echoed in the malady of racism, has left a scar on the history of America, and is, in and of itself, a painful example of the larger epidemic of sin.  While many who have witnessed the injustice of racism would confess how incredible it would be to live in a world free of it, all who have experienced the ravages of sin would acknowledge the even greater miracle of finally being free from it and it’s curse.

But to be honest, I am not sure that even that feeling will eclipse the wonder of finally seeing our Savior face-to-face.

Prepared to Sing

This is a difficult image to imagine.  Christ shed His blood to redeem us.  Our heavenly garments will be washed in His blood, yet whiter than snow.  Though my sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow, from Isaiah 1:18.  I believe it, it is just difficult to wrap my mind around it!

Can you imagine what we will sound like when we stand in His glorious presence, in glorified bodies, singing of His glorious and sovereign grace?  I try sometimes.  I have often asked the question, “Why do we spend so little time considering how we will spend eternity?”  Rather, we spend so much time over concerns of this earth, this life, this age, but it will all pass away.

I have a friend who, when faced with the continual frustrations of this life, likes to remind me, “It’s all going to burn.”  Those who have trusted in Christ will not, but effectively everything else will.  It is the sovereign grace of our Redeemer that allows us to climb the stairwell and not only get to the heavenly gates, but confidently walk right it.

Uh huh.  Your point?

These are all themes many are familiar with, but I wonder if we allow them to have their intended effect on our living.  I find it interesting that the hymn closes with this incredible picture of Heaven for us.  I love the certainty with which these things are declared.  It is from that finality that we must draw strength to live these days, even as we long for those.

My point?  That is our Savior.  That is our future.  That is our song.

Tune your heart to sing it today, that eternity may resonate within you even now.

Coming King, help you sing Your praise here, though imperfectly, even as I long to sing it best face-to-face.  Come quickly, Lord.  But should you tarry, that is delay Your coming, may it be to give me opportunities to encourage others to join me, and prepare my ransomed soul to sing!

What thought of Heaven gives you the greatest sense of anticipation for your eternal Home?  Please comment below.

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 5 

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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.

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

Many of you probably immediately identified the familiar Christmas Carol text, “I Wonder as I Wander”. [Listen here] Don’t worry, I am not confused, and neither are you.   I have switched the words around to put emphasis on the wandering.

I have a friend who has a problem with the idea that I am “prone to wander”.  His point is that my new nature is not prone to wander.  While I would agree with Him, I contended that my nature is not prone to wander, but my flesh certainly is.  “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”  Matthew 26:41

This is why Robinson in His text asks God to bind his wandering heart to Himself by virtue of God’s goodness.  In our context I would say our tendency is to get out of tune, to wander away from the Perfect Pitch, God Himself.  So we echo that prayer to be bound and set fast in “tune”, but our flesh is bent on getting out of tune.

When I stop and wonder at the marvelous love God has shown me in sending His Son, [I wonder…how Jesus the Savior did come for to die/for poor, orn’ry people like you and like I] my wondering is not so much, “Hum, that’s interesting” as much as “Wow! why would He do that!?!” When I stop and wonder at His grace toward me, I am overwhelmed by it all.  The issue is not my wondering, but my wandering.

See, if I would stop long enough to wonder, in other words if I would just stop wandering, my mind might be able to slow down enough to allow my spirit to be taught by His Spirit.  I mean wandering in the sense of meandering, going to and fro purposelessly, pictured by the above image.  I think this is a rampant condition for many souls. I think Robinson was acknowledging that through his words.

I do not want to wander anymore.  I want to be bound, settled, centered in God’s goodness.  A fetter is chain used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles.  Generally fetters are not thought of as a good thing.  But when the fetter is not a chain, but an awareness of God’s goodness, and that fetter constrains my wandering heart to the singular purpose of embracing the grace of God, that fetter is a very good thing.

I do not want to wander.  I want to wonder.  Help me Jesus!

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 4 

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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.

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

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

In short, absolutely not!

It sure feels like it sometimes though.  I mean, we have some really hard days.  And sometimes the hard days string into hard weeks, months, even years.

And it makes sense.  Flesh and sin are trouble makers.  If it were not for the flesh, sin would not be an issue for the believer because we have a new nature in Christ.  If it were not for sin, our flesh would have only righteous things in which to engage.  But we have not been freed, or released from the curse.

Even though we are given a new nature when we were in Christ, that new nature still takes up it’s residence in the residue of our sinful nature, the flesh. As long as there was flesh, there will be sinning, even without the influence of the devil and the world, because we have simply grown so adept at it, at least for now.

And there is absolutely this hope not only that we will arrive safely at home, not only that God’s great help will continue to lead us along, not only that we can begin to praise him now even while we wait on our inheritance,  but ultimately in the confidence that one day we shall be free of flesh and sin, no more sorrowing in spirit.

And that is the very thing that helps us deal with our sorrow in these days. Not only the sorrow that comes from our own sin, but also the sorrow that comes as a result of the consequences of the sinful, fallen world.  It may seem like circular logic good let me spell it out.

• The end of sorrowing is coming
• That confidence helps us until our sorrowing ends

The fact that an end is coming to this sorrowing, helps us to deal with the sorrowing. God helps us to move along through this weary world, filled at times with great blessings, as we await on the one to come.  Choose today to set your hope on Christ, to cry out to him for His help to deal with whatever grieves your heart today, and then to praise Him as the help comes.

Fount of Every Blessing, what I seek from You today is a relenting from the sorrow caused by my flesh.  I choose to praise You in advance of my Deliverance, knowing full-well that you will bring it to pass.  Help me to fix my eyes on You as I long for the day when this struggle comes to an end.  As I wait for that Day, give me the grace in this day to offer You my worship.

Do you have a habit that helps you turn the sorrow into praise?  Maybe it is something that would be helpful to others.  No idea is unwelcome.

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 2 

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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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