Hosea 11
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and a happy heart is always a singing heart.
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;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it!
Name of God’s redeeming love.
You know there’s not a time I sing this hymn when I don’t think of my sister Jay on the Maryland farm. Even now, whenever I’m back home visiting her, we always find time to sing our favorite hymns. And this one is tops on our list.
And when we sing this song, it’s really more like a prayer. “Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be; let Thy goodness like a fetter, Lord bind my wandering heart to Thee. ‘Cause prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love: So please here’s my heart, please take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above!”
Tears come easily when I sing that familiar verse. And I cry because it’s true. My heart is so inclined to default to base, ordinary; mediocre or mundane things; worthless things that have no redemptive value. I’m inclined to roam away from God. Wander from Him. I know myself all too well! And the poignant thing is, God knows me, too. Listen to how Hosea Chapter 11 reflects His thoughts on our wandering hearts. Starting with the second verse, the Lord says, “But the more I called Israel, the further they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and I bent down to feed them. But still the more I called the further they went from me.” Oh, and you know the story from there, right? Of all the good things God did, His children, even way back then were prone to wander, just as we are still now.
Oh, friend, God is the one who taught you to take your first steps in your Christian life. During times of confusion, God took you by the arms and He led you. In all your illnesses, it was God who healed you. When you stumbled, it was God who picked you up. He bound you to Himself with cords of human kindness and ties of love (I like that part about human kindness, because what it means is, every time (think of it) every time another human being was ever kind to you, ever smiled at you, every time another human being lifted you up and shared words of encouragement, it was God who was behind it. God was behind it all. Every smile you ever received, God inspired it; God put the thought in that person’s head)! God is the one who has condescended time and again to bend down to feed you and love you, provide for, lead you, heal you, minister to you, encourage, strengthen you, and to take care of you. And you know what? That alone is worth singing about.
© Joni and Friends
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