Tune My Heart, Episode 11
- Stacy Bishop
- Oct 3, 2024
- 3 min read
Happy Sunday, friend. As you prepare for worship this morning, let’s take a moment of quiet to invite God’s presence into your awareness today.
At my home church, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the words to Come Thou Fount, the old hymn for which this podcast is named.
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
It’s a beautiful song, both lyrically and melodically. And I think it’s possible that each verse is better than the next. When we added this song into our song catalog recently, I felt the need to explain some of the more antiquated language in verse 2, especially.
Verse 2 says this:
Here I raise my 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
Wand’ring from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood
If you didn’t catch it, that word Ebenezer in there isn’t generally in everyone’s modern day vernacular. It’s from a very specific story in the Bible that’s found in 1 Samuel 7. If you’re not familiar with the story, I’d encourage you to read it. But in a nutshell, God has once again come to Israel’s rescue after they’ve wandered away from Him. He does this in a mighty way, where there’s no other explanation for this situation other than “God helped us.” In response, Samuel, who served as prophet, priest and judge for Israel, sets up this stone structure as a memorial, a reminder, of God’s victory for them in this situation. And he names the stone Ebenezer, which means Stone of Help. It was there to remind them, as well as future generations, of God’s faithfulness.
As a way of preparing our hearts this morning, I want you to name some Ebenezer moments in your own life. Some moments where God showed up and showed off. Moments that can only be explained as “God helped me.” I encourage you to think through these moments and meditate on them as you continue your preparation this morning.
As I was singing this at church last Sunday, I couldn’t help but think, “God, I’m only here, leading worship, singing Your praises, on this platform, because of Your great help. Hither by Thy help I’m come.” I pray that you can see that in your own life, too.
Let’s pray.
God, we are so thankful for the times when You’ve stepped into our lives in a big way. When Your hand was obvious in our lives. And we’re thankful for the everyday, seemingly little, miracles where Your hand has sustained us and guided us and we didn’t even recognize it. God, as we think back on Your faithfulness in our lives, help those Ebenezer moments to stand out today. To spur us on and to help our hearts to be ready to sing Your praises today. God, we’re only here by Your great help. Let us never forget Your faithfulness and goodness to us. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A downloadable/printable version of this devo is available here:
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