all by myself with you

"I forgot to say out loud how beautiful you are to me...please, please, don't leave me. I always say how I don't need you, but it's always gonna come right back to this...please, don't leave me..." -Pink, Please Don't Leave Me


This is not a quote from a hymn...not even a modern worship song. It's a song sung by the pop artist, Pink. Funny thing is...it could have easily been something straight from Scripture.

Yesterday, I was talking with someone about how God's pursuing of me seems to have intensified lately. He's definitely wooing me all over again, appealing to my hopelessly romantic nature...a quality He Himself thoughtfully and lovingly created in me before there even was a me. There are times when I'm out jogging or hiking or even just walking through a parking lot, were it seems God brings my attention to some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful bit of nature and whispers softly, "For you, beloved."

Usually, my heart is easily re-captivated by my Father and King during these moments, but it's the in-between times that led me to start with the quote at the top of this post. How often do you stop and just praise God for His beauty? His grace? His faithfulness? His unending, undeserved love? Not nearly enough, I'm afraid. Fear not, for I am in that boat with you. None of us...not a one, could love Him back as fiercely, as rightly and passionately as He loves us. We do quite the opposite at times, actually. It's almost laughable how so often in the Old Testament we read, "...and the people again sinned in the sight of the Lord" or something along those lines. On one page we read of some amazing blessing God bestowed upon His children, then we turn the page (or even just move to the next paragraph) and read about how those same people have forgotten their Creator, the very Source of their blessings, and sinned yet again. There are times when I read passages like that and shout, "Seriously?!!" Yes, seriously. We're like that.

So often we try to live by our own might, our own power, and feel as if God is here to serve us, not the other way around. We get to the point were we think we've "got it", then we're proven horribly, horribly wrong. Then it is at that point, when we're setting up shop in Rock-bottomville, that we cry out, "please don't leave me!!" Can you imagine how much patience God has to have when it comes to us? It's just like when a child says, "I want to do it all by myself, Daddy" all the while they cling to their father's hand. I've even caught myself saying, "I want to be by myself...with people." We say we want to be left alone...as long as we don't have to do it alone. God's gotta laugh at that sometimes.

Anywho, I think the following hymn says a lot of what I'm thinking at this moment, enjoy, for it is one of my favorites. Pay close attention to the verse that says, "prone to wander...". Good stuff

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
by: Robert Robinson, 1758

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 Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great 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,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O 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.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.