An unassuming Wednesday afternoon in McPherson last month energized my soul in a way I had not foreseen.
Everyone else in our family had commitments that day, so I found myself the lone concert attendee, grabbing a seat with other grandparents in the mostly empty Brown Auditorium on the campus of McPherson College. Twelve Heart of America League high school honors choirs had gathered all morning for a workshop with guest choir conductor, Dr. Andrew Voth, and then shared vocal numbers individually and together in the 1 pm concert.
I was there to support Kesler, our grandson, who is part of the Berean Academy choir which joined all the other school’s singers for a grand finale of six choral numbers. Around one hundred and fifty students, crammed onto risers, filled the stage to overflowing and then sang their hearts out.
One of those songs reached deeply into my soul and moved me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Entitled “O Love,” the hymn arrangement presented a glorious version of the Scottish “Blind Preacher,” George Matheson’s, famous poem, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.” The words embedded themselves into my consciousness and drew me to eventually memorize all four stanzas.
Blind and alone, Matheson had found himself at an extremely low and vulnerable point in his life. He’d been abandoned by his fiancé and then had to say goodbye to his caregiving sister, who left him to get married. Out of his pain and heartache, Matheson turned to Jesus and received in a matter of minutes the deeply personal and assuring words of the now famous hymn that reflected the comfort that he experienced when he took his pain to the Lord. This profound word from the Lord sustained him for many years of fruitful ministry.
“O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.”
How does a weary soul get refreshed? Matheson testifies, “Entrust your pain to your good God, who promises to enrich and sustain out of the ocean depths of his love and grace his grieving loved ones who come to him in their need.”
A recent vacation to the Alabama Gulf Coast nailed the image in my mind as Bobbie and I walked beautiful white sand beaches and dipped our feet in the surf of never ceasing waves. Sometimes those waves bombarded, and sometimes they caressed the shore. I sensed in the waves a message from the Lord to me. “Steve, you don’t have to have the resources you need. You’re connected to the author and giver of all grace! There’s so much more than what you need available as you go deep with Jesus.”
Ocean’s worth!
I’m remembering how the Apostle John put it in John 1:16, “For from his FULNESS we have all received, grace upon grace.” I love that. Like waves unceasingly reaching for the shore, our Heavenly Father offers his unlimited life, love, joy, light, and his presence to us. Turning to him, like Matheson did, and focusing on how unbelievably generous and wise the Lord is in the hour of our need, is the key.
Matheson reminds us, “Don’t run from your pain. Bring it to Jesus. Remember that he promises a ‘tearless morn.’”
“O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be.”
Here’s to that present comfort and the future hope of a “tearless morn” that shouts of our unshakable future with Jesus.
Steve Friesen
Elder at Grace Community Church