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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