“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)

At Children's Hospital in Boston, on the sixth floor, my son Kori and I had to endure a week of chemotherapy treatment. As I sat beside him one afternoon, my gaze absentmindedly drifted out the window. Down below, people went about their daily lives, seemingly unaffected by our struggles—walking briskly, driving cars, pausing for coffee, chatting on the sidewalks. I whispered to myself, "My son used to move so freely, like them..." Then, a sudden realization struck me: the ability to breathe, to walk, even to use the bathroom independently, all blessings, pure grace from the Lord! Lost in thought, I began to softly sing a hymn: “Come, thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace”

In 1743, at the age of eight, Robert Robinson lost his father. Consumed by anger and bitterness, he spiraled into rebellion during his teenage years—drinking, gambling, causing trouble. At 17, he attended a revival service led by the renowned preacher George Whitfield. Nearly three years later, at age 20, Robinson made peace with God. Joining the Methodists and feeling called to preach, he was appointed by John Wesley himself to the Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Norfolk, England. On Pentecost Sunday in 1758, the third anniversary of his conversion, he penned the words of the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

Despite composing such a beautiful hymn, Robinson's life took a downward turn, and he inexplicably became unstable and unhappy, even abandoning his faith. Years later, he found himself seated beside a young lady on a stagecoach. She sang a song, and when she finished, she asked Robinson what he thought of it. His response was startling: "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings as I had then.” When she replied, “Sir, the ‘Streams of mercy’ are still flowing," he was so touched that he repented. Through his own words and a witness, his faith was restored. Robinson's words often resonate with us: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart; O take and seal it, For thy courts above.”

Pastor Seok-Hwan

REFLECTION AND PRAYER:

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

1. 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.

2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer;

hither by thy help I'm 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.

3. 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.

Text: Robert Robinson, 1735-1790

Music: Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second