...tenderly bound

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, Lord, take and seal it; seal it for Thy courts above.

---Robert Robinson, 1758

It might be easy to see this verse as a guilt trip. What kind of lousy follower am I? Prone to wander, in debt to grace, I need a fetter --- a chain --- to bind me to God. Ouch. Then I remember that in this hymn, as in so much of life, it’s not about me. This hymn explores not human nature, frail and failing though it be. This text is all about the nature of God, a God who loves us enough to pursue us, to bind us to Godself with chains --- chains made not of might or threat, or violence, but of goodness. And in my inmost heart, I long to be held close to the heart of God, with fetters that tender. I am a debtor. For God’s unfailing mercy, I owe a debt I will never repay. Through God’s grace, freely given, I owe nothing.

Because of the weightlessness of my bonds, I will serve always out of love and gratitude. I’m bound like that.