Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,

Source: http://www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630313/

Robert Robinson was just a small boy when his dad died. In 18th century England, there was little in the way of a social welfare system and this meant that he had to go to work while still very young. Without a father to guide and steady him, he fell in with bad companions.

One day his gang of rowdies harassed a drunken gypsy. Pouring liquor into her, they demanded she tell their fortunes for free. Pointing her finger at Robert she told him he would live to see his children and grandchildren. This struck a tender spot in his heart. "If I'm going to live to see my children and grandchildren," he thought, "I'll have to change my way of living. I can't keep on like I'm going now."

He decided to go hear the Methodist preacher George Whitefield. To cover his "weak" urge, he suggested that the boys go with him and heckle the gathering. Whitefield preached on the text: "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matthew 3:7). Robert left in dread, under a deep sense of sin that lasted for three years.

Finally, at the age of twenty, he made peace with God and immediately set out to become a Methodist preacher himself. Two years later, in 1757, he wrote a hymn which expressed his joy in his new faith:

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.

This was printed the next year. At first people thought that Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, a strong Methodist had written this. Eventually it was learned that Robert was the writer. In the last stanza, Robert had written:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love
Take my heart, O take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above.

Prone to wander Robert was. He left the Methodists and became a Baptist. Later on, having become a close friend of Joseph Priestly, he was accused of becoming a Unitarian. Priestly and other Unitarians denied the full divinity of Christ. However, in a sermon he preached after he supposedly became a Unitarian, Robinson clearly declared that Jesus was God, and added, "Christ in Himself is a person infinitely lovely as both God and man."

Robert died on this day, June 9, 1790. Had he left the God he loved? A widely-told, but unverifiable, story says that one day as he was riding in a stagecoach a lady asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming. He responded, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."

* * *

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

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.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh,
till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

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, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

- Robert Robinson -

____________________

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. 

He named it Ebenezer, saying, 

"Thus far has the LORD helped us." 

1 Samuel 7:12

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

- Horatio Spafford -

Sometimes

Sometimes, I just try to do what I can.
But it seems like what I can do is not what others want.

Sometimes, I just try to do my best.
But it seems like the best that I can do is not enough.

Sometimes, I try not to show off.
But it seems like there is a tendency for others,
and for me also, to think that I am prideful.
And it is very dreadful to feel so.

Sometimes, I just try to work things out for everyone.
But it seems like not everyone wants to work it out,

together.

Sometimes, I just try to follow the protocols.
But it seems like things are going against it. 

Sometimes, I just try to ask in proper way.
But it seems like what I get is just a false promise.

Sometimes, I just try to understand someone.

But it seems like so hard to reach,

and they don't really care also.

Sometimes, I just try to be kind.
But it seems like others respond in a way that,
I am just an answering machine.

Sometimes, I just try to understand  why are they doing it.

But it seems like what they do is always contradicting themselves,

and make no sense out of it.

Sometimes, I just try to get away from it.

But it seems like they keep coming back to you,

persistently.

Sometimes, I just try to forget about it,

But it seems like the more you try to forget,

the more you will remember it.

Sometimes, I just try to find someone to pour out my problems.
But it seems like there is only one person that I can talk to,
and his age is triple of mine.

I just don't understand why,
and I just don't know what to do,
or how to do.

Is it because I didn't try my best?
Or is it because I am just trying to go through it?
Or is it because I didn't do it out of love?
Or is it because I didn't trust God?
I don't know,

I really don't know.


* * *


我缓缓飘落 海的那边 星光的草原
  却已找不到我 流过的一滴泪

我默默追寻昨天的我 最远到哪里 
明天不再有你

我怎么疯狂 怎么悲伤 没有人了解
最想念的季节 最初的那一天
我爱说的梦 你爱的歌 往事如云烟

停在那一年 雨最大那一天
最想念的季节 有人记得吗？


 ____________________

想過要將就一點 ，卻發現將就更難。

Awakenings 1990

Holiday is at the corner, and I just watched a movie entitled Awakenings (1990) recommended by my Neurology teacher, Olga Victorovna Kurushina. She said the actor in this movie portrayed the side effects of L-DOPA, the first line drug for treatment of Parkinson's disease.

This is based on a true story. The doctor discovered that the drug L-DOPA can be used to let his first patient Leonard, then other catatonic-like patients to once again move and speak again, or in a simpler word, "awakening" from their catatonic state. But soon everyone realised that this brief moment of "awakening" doesn't last long. Eventually, no matter how much they increased the dosage of L-DOPA, rather than continue the "awakening" period, they experienced the side effects of L-DOPA, such as dyskinesia and paranoia symptoms. The patients eventually returned to their catatonic stage. Leonard and many of the patients experienced brief periods of awakening, but never as dramatically as they did in the summer of 1969.

This movie really strikes me a lot. There is so much a doctor can do, and there is so little a doctor can do. A dosage of 1000mg L-DOPA can awake Leonard from his catatonic state, yet when the "chemical window closed", no matter how much Doctor Sayer prescribes the L-DOPA, Leonard eventually fall back to his previous state. Dr. Sayer said to the nurse, "You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give life... only to take it away again?" Seriously, doctors are just humans, neither can they do mircales, nor resurrect a person, only God can performs miracles, and raises those people from dead to alive.

Another things that strikes me so much is when Leonard start to becomes more aggressive and having dyskinesia due to the side effects of L-DOPA, he start to seek freedom, and when it is not granted by the hospital administrators, he becomes furious and agitated. He tries to seek his own way out. Even when Dr. Sayer tries to explain his situation, he hardens his heart, and listen not to him, even to the point to push Dr. Sayer away. But when Leonard comes to his sense, when he realises how helpless he is, he cries out to Dr. Sayer, "Help me". He also asks whether Dr. Sayer can stop this process, though Dr. Sayer has no idea what to do, yet he says, "Do not give up on me."

Isn't our own situation similar to Leonard's? There is NOTHING that we can do for our own sinless state. For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Everyone of us, ever since from the Fall, have sinned. All of us fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Some people, deny their situation. Some people, recognise their situation, but they try to save themselves through their own works and good deeds.

I just finished my Psychiatry cycle, and while I am reading about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I read about Hay's paradox: the organ giving consent is the organ affected. So in the same way, we who are trying to save ourselves, are the people in trouble. So actually, all of us, without exclusion, like Leonard. There is nothing that we can do to help our ownselves. This is the bad news.

But there is good news also. What God wants from us is not that we trust our ownselves and trust our own works to save ourselves by our own strength and power, but like Leonard, calls up to Him and say "Help me", for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). What God wants is to look away from ourselves, and trust Him and Him alone, trust in His work that has been once and for all done on the Cross. Trust Him that He and He alone can deliver us from our sinful state. The old hymn sings, Trust and obey, for there is no other way. Really, there is not other way, but to trust and obey, the One and only One. But remember also, different from Dr. Sayer who can just do what a man can do, God can do what man cannot do. Not only He can awake us, He can make us to born again, so that we can see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). And we can also assure that He will never give up on us, because He says, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

 ____________________

"The time has come," He said. 

"The kingdom of God is near. 

Repent and believe the good news!"  

Mark 1:15