(originally posted December 15, 2008)
On Sunday Pastor Benji spoke on passages found in Isaiah 53:6 and Matthew 9:36. We'll be spending this week considering the metaphor of sheep without a shepherd.
For today, I just want to bring a question to the table that will hopefully cause us to think about our tendency to do certain "sheep-like" behaviors.
Question: Why do we have this sheep-like propensity to wander?
Our hymnal does us a bit of a disservice, because the editors chose to include an altered version of the third verse of "Come Thou Fount". Here is the third verse as it appears in our hymnal, altered in 1931:
O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace, now like a fetter, bind my yielded heart to Thee.
Let me know Thee in Thy fullness; guide me by Thy mighty hand
Till, transformed in Thine own image, in Thy presence I shall stand.
And here is the original verse, written in 1758:
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.
I believe that the more honest text is the one from 1758. While we have a desire to yield, we are (at least for now) living and functioning in this body of flesh, this nature that resists the process of change and the demands for submission and "holiness unto the Lord". And the last line, the plea for our hearts to be sealed, is a continual prayer. God help the one who thinks he has "arrived" and is no longer in the need of the grace of God.
My prayer is that as we embark on this week of facing up to our dark side, we will find encouragement and hope in the power of our holy God to manifest Himself as our Shepherd, the one who will keep us safe in His fold and prevent us from wandering.
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