Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing

There are moments when God’s blessings are beyond measure.  Just when I think my life could not be any more blessed, something amazing will happen, forcing me to remember that God’s blessings are more abundant that I can conceive.

“Come thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing thy praise
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise”

He brought me into being, surrounding me with a family of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins who poured love into me.  He built up my mind and my heart, bringing me to a place where I could recognize the person whom He planned to be my perfect partner, my amazing wife.  He blessed us with children: Eliza with her winsome charm; Rachel with her lively spirit; Maddy with a voice and heart for music.

“Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it
Mount of thy redeeming love”

Today’s song is very, very special.  Although you can’t really see who is singing in the video, and you’ll have to turn the volume up a bit, it is my oldest daughter Maddy and her good friend Will performing one of my very favorite hymns.  They arranged it, practiced, were chosen to perform, and surprised me with it at their choir concert earlier this year.  It was a blessing beyond words and a moment I will never forget my entire life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9XW8M7zeWo&feature=youtu.be).

When I think about the image of a “fount”, I imagine an overflowing spring of water.  It is a source which, no matter how prolifically it continues to bring forth its refreshing coolness, it never ends.  Never.  God will bless us again and again, in ways we cannot imagine.  He is even able to take pain, sorrow, tragedy and turn these forlorn moments into great blessings.

I recognize that I am helpless without Him.  I hold onto the Rock that is the firm foundation He provides.  I pray to never let go of it so that at the end of my days here on earth, I am still with Him.

“Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither to thy help I’ve come
And I hope by thy good measure
Safely to arrive at home”

But I do not earn – cannot earn – the abundance of blessings God brings.  In fact, except for the fact that I am a child of God, as we all are, I am far from deserving from these blessings…as we all are.  He blesses me with His Son not because I have positioned my life in some way, but because He wants me to be healed.

“Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood”

When I count the blessings God gives and gives and given again, I think, “what do I owe for all of this?”; “how can I ever repay it?”  But the truth is that I owe nothing; His gracious love to me is a gift without cost.  As I am bound to Him, even as I stray, it is in the arms of His embrace where I reside, not in a ruler’s oppressive grip.

“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”

But He does want something from me.  Not because He requires it or desires a repayment of these many blessings.  He wants my heart; he wants me to offer it joyfully and of my own volition.  In my offering to Him of my heart, He perfects its ability to love, and it becomes yet another blessing back to me.

“Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord
Take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above”

So, will you come to the fount and drink deeply?  God desires to bless us over and over and over again.  He loves us so much, wants us to be filled with His blessings so abundantly, that He gave us everything.  The universe, the stars and planets, this Earthly home is His gift to us.  But there is more. He brought to us His Son and allowed Him to experience all that we do.  He even turned the death of His Son into the greatest blessing of all; an eternal life with Him.  Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.