Prone to Wander

There's something really special about worship music and how it has the ability to stir up affections for God. Affections that might have been sitting dormant for a while, even.

I have a few worship songs that really stir my affections for God. O Holy Night still gives me chills, even when it's not Christmas. Beautiful Things by Gungor, Beautiful Love by Miranda Dodson and Come Though Fount (love the Mumford and Sons version) are also my favorites. I'm not sure why I turned it to 105.9 this morning because it tends to play "youth group" music a little too much for my taste but on my way to work I flipped my radio over to that station. Come Thou Fount was playing.

There is something about a set of lyrics in this song that really resonate with me. "O to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be! Let they 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'm brought to tears every time. Every. Stinking. Time. Why? Why is it that these lyrics are so piercing to me? Why do lyrics about wandering away from Jesus stir my affections?

It's a confession. One that I'm all too familiar with.

I turned the radio off after the song was over and began to pray. Things that I "wander" to were flowing through my head like a never-ending stream. I am SO prone to wander. It's so easy for me, for some reason, to wander far from God. I easily give in to things like lust, envy, discontentment, bitterness and greed. When things are hard, I so often want to turn away from God and to things that are momentarily satisfying. Shopping, eating, over-drinking, gossiping or just plain "wanting". (Pinterest is great at helping me with this.)

I am hugely a debtor to grace and yet I forget on a DAILY basis the beauty of it and how much has been extended to me in the past and how much He extends to me every day, even for just the mere thought of "wanting more". I need reminding and some days I'm just too tired to remind myself.

I've felt very distant from God lately and quite honestly, a little frustrated with how He has written this particular chapter in my story. I personally would have written it differently. I would have written in a little more money in the bank account, a baby that will let me put her down, a nicer car, a person to show up on my door step with an offer for our Explorer that we've been trying to sell for over 6 months and maybe a little more sleep. I'd have already lost all of my baby weight and could buy every article of clothing I have pinned on pinterest. I'd live down the street from my best girl friends and hang out with them every day. Oh, and our Belton house just wouldn't even exist in the story. That damn thing.

But, it's not my story and thank God for that. I realized there is a purpose to my story much deeper and fulfilling than I could have ever written it when I gave my pretty blunt and raw testimony a few weeks ago at Church and was bombarded with emails, texts and facebook messages thanking me for telling my story. A story I would have never written.

Thank you God for pursuing me even when I don't want you to. Thank you for loving me and extending grace when I personally don't want to turn to you. I'm prone to wander and I thank you that you don't ever let me wander too far.

O to grace how great a debtor.

Melissa