Take the gloomiest thing you have ever ever read multiply that by 999924355.883 and you're not even close to this bhad boy!

Nothing Less than Calvary Love

I came across this beautiful hymn, think I must have sung it before because the words are really familiar but I can't seem to remember the tune! It was written by a man named George Matheson. He was born partially sighted. As he grew older his sight increasingly diminished until eventually he became entirely blind. He was a church of Scotland minister and he was so gifted at communicating the gospel, memorising his sermons and whole sections of scripture, that often people were completely unaware that he was blind. His story goes...that he was engaged to be married, however as his sight faded his young fiance decided that she didn't want to be married to a blind preacher and so left him.

He writes of the night that he composed his great hymn:

"some­thing 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 in­ward 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 cor­rect­ion. I have no na­tur­al gift of rhy­thm. All the other vers­es I have ever writ­ten are man­u­fact­ured ar­ti­cles; this came like a day­spring from on high."

The hymn was titled '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.

Recently I have been wrestling a wee bit with the concept of predestination. I decided that I would finally explore the mahoosive issue which seems to scramble christian's brains all o'r the place ...arminian...calvinist...calminian...arminist...cruel calvinist...double-predestination...? Romans 9 caused me many a long moment of confused thought and grief. I couldn't reconcile the God of Romans 9 with the God I want to serve and worship. YET, I have just realised that there is a reason why Romans 8 comes before 9, oh yes (pure slow-case!haha!).

'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...For i am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor ANY powers...will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.'

God is Love. O Love that Wilt Not Let me Go.

Hats off to George! He got it spot on. Legend of the highest order right there.

<------------------ this is george