Beyond the Hymnal: Come Thou Fount
“Do not let mercy and kindness and truth leave you [instead let these qualities define you]; Bind them [securely] around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.” (Proverbs 3:3-4, AMP)
Like most toddlers, my kids love to wake up in the morning and watch a little television before they start their day. The problem is, if Sam or I don’t shut it off after a couple of episodes, those kids will waste their whole day in front of the thing, watching movie after movie and show after show. And the more they watch before being disconnected, the more off their behavior is when the television finally does turn off.
We’re talking tantrums, crying, and whining galore. But even on the best day; when they happily agree to turn off the TV, they need encouragement on what to do. Every day, the suggestions are the same: play a game, do a project/craft, play with this toy, read a book, go outside… for some reason, they can’t formulate for themselves something they can do once the screen goes dark.
It almost seems like those kids are bound to it. They are addicted to watching TV. To me, as an adult, I can see the clear lines of it being an idol to them, and that’s why as the parent, it’s my job to break the connection to it when it becomes too much. But as an adult, what am I bound to if I don’t allow the Lord to break the connection? What idols do I have when I don’t turn my attention to God and allow Him to encourage me to disengage from it?
A young man named Robert Robinson was bound to drinking and the gang lifestyles of 18th century London. At 17 years old, he and his friends visited a fortune-teller during a night of antics and drinking. Even while his friends were laughing, it would seem that something about the experience bothered Robert, because he suggested to his friends that they go to an evangelistic meeting being held by George Whitefield.
Whitefield had a reputation of being a very passionate and moving speaker, and the message he gave that night was out of Matthew 3:7: “But when He saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to His baptism, He said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Accounts of that night say that Robert immediately sobered up, affected by Whitefield’s words and feeling like the message was being spoken directly to him. Even still, it would be three years before Robert Robinson gave his life to Christ. Upon entering ministry at age 23, he wrote a song based on a prayer for his Pentecost Sunday sermon. That prayer was asking the Holy Spirit to flood him with His mercy, to take his sin that hindered him from worshiping God, and to bind him by grace to the Lord that rescued him from God’s wrath against his sins.
“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is still a widely beloved hymn in the church today, both for its poetic lyrics and its resounding honesty. Each line could be its own devotion in worshiping God and understanding the depths to which the Gospel of Truth reaches. When I read Proverbs 3, that song bubbles up in my soul.
Do not let God’s mercy, kindness, and truth leave you. Call out to the Lord that they would flow like a fountain– surge like an unceasing stream of mercy over you– so that these things would come to define us. Do not forget about the kindness God has shown you in such a way that it becomes a kindness with which we live by and show to others. When others speak of us, may they speak God’s truth, seeing it so engraved in our hearts that it becomes part of the very fabric of our selves.
May we bind God’s mercy toward us to our necks, like a favorite necklace we never take off. Like a nameplate. May we write it on our hearts so that it is the very motive by which we live.
We need the Holy Spirit to help us do this. Without God’s Spirit, we have no hope of breaking the connection to the idols our flesh would rather bind itself to. Like my toddlers that need a little encouragement to shut off the distractions, we need God’s Spirit to push us to lay down our sins and those things that obstruct our view of the Lord. If we are not bound to God’s mercy, we will be bound to something else.
The prayer on our hearts every day should be, “Lord, bind my wandering heart to thee! I am prone to walk away; I am likely to leave and forget. Take my heart. Seal me to you. Tie me to your love and mercy for me, so that I might never find myself outside of you!”
The hymn itself says, “Let your grace, now, like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee.” A fetter is a shackle. It’s a ball and chain. Robert Robinson’s prayer literally was to be chained to God’s grace, because his weak and drifting flesh was likely to be distracted.
But if we study God’s Word? If we allow Him to transform us and confront our sin? If we let Him refine us and mature us by His Spirit?
We become better worshipers. We find favor not only in the God that we aim to glorify, but in the eyes of the world that doesn’t know any better. We are blessed not by riches or success or prosperity, but by the Fount of every blessing. We can be instructed, we can store up wisdom that is poured out from the God of all wisdom. We are bound to the God who is grace, mercy, and love in His person.
Our hearts will become attuned to Him. What a worthy God to be bound to. What a worthwhile reason to shut off everything else that takes away from pressing on towards the Savior.
