Prone to Wander, Still Held Fast

Robert Robinson was twenty-two years old when he wrote the words that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was 1757, and the young pastor was preparing a Pentecost sermon when he penned what we now sing as Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. The hymn pulsed with gratitude — Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I'm come — but buried in the third verse was an admission as honest as anything in the Psalms: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it / prone to leave the God I love.

Robinson knew his own heart. He had come to faith under the convicting preaching of George Whitefield, rescued from a dissolute youth running with rough company. He knew what he was capable of. So he didn't write a triumphant hymn so much as a prayer: Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. And then, knowing his weakness, he begged God to seal what he could not secure himself.

Years later, Robinson did drift — theologically and spiritually, away from the evangelical faith of his youth. The man who wrote about grace had wandered from it.

But here is what the hymn proclaims: grace is not a reward for those who stay. It is an anchor for those who know they might not. Every Sunday, congregations sing Robinson's confession and his prayer together — because they are the same prayer. I will wander. Hold me anyway.