O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

O Love that wilt 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.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

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.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

George Matheson 1882

I remember well the offense of being told that my best was not good enough for God.  I was 15, my then girlfriend’s mother was a ‘born again’ Christian and into my devout Catholicism she dropped the idea that no matter what I could or would do to impress God it would fall short.  I was so angry, offended and devastated: it was a seed of truth that took root and fed into a despair that first took me into more sin and finally led me to look to Christ for forgiveness.

Matheson’s hymn was born of his own life of general suffering and specifically something that happened to him in the run up to a family wedding:

My hymn was com posed in the manse of Innelan [Argyleshire, Scotland] on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family were staying over night in Glasgow. Some thing happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some in ward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any re­touching or correct ion. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a day spring from on high.

How amazing that the limitations of the human life can actually teach us of the true nature of God!  Even life at its worst is not devoid of hope.  People who critique Christians and dismiss us often do so with a linguistic sneer and an implication that we only believe because we are too weak to face life on our own.  But the truth is that ‘life on our own’ is weakness at it’s height, in fact it is death without hope.  Surrendering life ‘on our own’ for life in Jesus Name is facing up to life as it is.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:66-69