tune my heart to sing Thy grace

so it's been awhile since i have blogged. but you have to understand. school and work and finals almost killed me. but everything is okay because CHRISTMAS BREAK IS HERE! i have been meaning to write this blog post for almost a month. but the truth in the thoughts still ring true. even if it has taken me awhile to verbalize it. 

one thursday night at BCM, the band played the song "come thou fount". i have grown up in church, let me remind you. i could probably sing this hymn in my sleep, as could most of you readers. but this time i actually listened to the lyrics. wow. talk about a rude awakening. i had to stop singing. i literally couldn't sing anymore because i didn't know if i could wholeheartedly sing the words. my heart was being spiritually wrecked as everyone was singing around me. i left BCM really touched by the song. but what do most christians do when they are touched by something? exactly. they do nothing. side bar: the rich young ruler left the temple feeling convicted but jesus said he couldn't enter the kingdom of heaven. another blog post for another day. i kinda forgot about what jesus had revealed to my heart during that song at BCM. uhhh that was until i went to church on sunday and what was the first song played? "come thou fount". talk about another slap in the face. this time i was not going to forget why i was spiritually wrecked. and i haven't forgotten it ever since that day.

for those of you that need a refresher on the lyrics, i'll put them below. and really take time to read them. you might find yourself wrecked like i was. 

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
I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it
Mount of thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I come
And I hope by thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wondering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

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

okay we are going to break down my thoughts on this verse by verse. cause let me remind you. this song WRECKED me. so this blog post might be longer than most. sorry not sorry.

verse #1: the line in this verse that hit me the hardest was "tune my heart to sing thy grace". obviously seeing as it is the title of the entire post. when i heard this for the first time, i immediately thought of a guitar. now for everyone that knows me knows i'm not in the least bit musical. but i at least know this: a guitar cannot tune itself. someone with greater knowledge about the instrument has to come along and manually fix the guitar. and obviously it is not a beautiful process. no one sits down and wants to listen to someone tune a guitar. there will be some really gross and painful notes played. they won't sound like they are supposed to. but once the musician is finished? the chords are beautiful. and music is created. when i heard this line, my heart broke. why exactly? because this means that inside, my heart is not bent towards playing beautiful chords. i want to sing God's grace but sometimes i come out of tune. because i'm not making myself available or i'm just playing some AWFUL notes. but God, rich in grace and mercy, tunes me back to be able to sing beautiful notes all about His grace. i'm left here in awe towards Him at this thought.

verse #2: first off, what in the world is an ebenezer? i love this song but when i'm singing this, i skip over that line cause what if an ebenezer is $1000 in old english and i'm supposed to lift it. i couldn't be held to that cause i don't have $1000. but that's not spiritual. so moving right along..

the fact that "jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood." can we just stop and thank a beautiful and sovereign savior that that line is true? i can't imagine being willing to sacrifice my life for someone else's crimes. but He did it for us all. even my grossest sins. he died for all of it. and backtracking a little bit in the song, jesus came after us and pursued us even when we hated him. when we were strangers to him. when we mocked him and threw him on a cross and killed him. if that's not true love, then i don't know what is. 

another sidebar: just looked up what an ebenezer is. it's a monumental stone meant to symbolize all of God's goodness and provisions in each of our lives. okay. i can lift that up. 

verse #3: "oh to grace how great a debtor daily i'm constrained to be. let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." again with the wandering and tuning. i guess the guy who wrote this song gets that even if we love jesus with everything in us, we are still human. we still sin. and we will still desperately need some one to tune us back to making beautiful notes for jesus. oh and btdubs i looked up the word "fetter" and they are shackles. so basically, i'm asking to be chained to jesus. if i was to be chained to anyone, i would choose jesus. he bought my soul with his own blood after all. he tunes me daily. he doesn't despise me even though so often i disappoint him. yes. i choose to be chained to jesus. and even though i know i'm "prone to wander and prone to leave the God i love", i choose to give jesus my heart because he deserves way more than that anyway.

okay. told you it was gonna be long. i could write WAYYY more about this song. but i will spare you all and let you go on with your lives. if you have stuck with me this far, then rock on! i pray that this song saturates your life and leaves you wrecked. God likes using the wrecked anyway. it shows the world who deserves the glory and honor. always jesus.