I was struck last week as we were as we were at the leader’s retreat at some of the prayers that we sung. Now I suppose I’m old guy when it comes to music though there’s lots of newer songs that I do love to sing. However, when it comes to sung prayer it is interesting how many of those are the songs which I have known all my life, even as a kid sang with some limited understanding of what it was I was singing/saying.

This is one that I especially love.

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
mount of God’s redeeming love.

Here I find my greatest treasure;
hither by thy help I’ve come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
bought me with his precious blood.

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:
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.

It is true that we don’t often use the word hither let alone thy, but still, the poetry is strong and the theology good. I could re-write, or someone with a gift for prose, but I don’t mind singing the confession…”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.”

You’ll get to this line after 2:40 in the YouTube video below which is a wonderful arrangement by the gifted Chris Rice.