Tuned into His Love

One of my absolute favorite things about traveling to remote places is being unreachable. I don't know about you all, but I am the worst when it comes to being distracted by the internet, work, and basically anything else that could even be the slightest bit distracting. One of the things I loved about my time in Santiago was how much more slowly things went. To learn more about the people there, we had to take time to get to know them and watch them. There were no short cuts, and to succeed, you really had to be in the moment, enjoying and observing everything around you. Thinking about this way of living made me realize how hard it is for me to sit and just enjoy the presence of the Lord. It is so easy for other concerns to crowd out my time alone with God, and I really have to work to get my heart tuned to a place where it's listening to God alone. One of my favorite hymns, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, describes really well the struggle to be tuned into the Lord alone (I also recently discovered it was written by a 22 year old pastor, which makes it seem even more relevant since he's so close to my age!):

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 God's unchanging love.

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,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let that grace now 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.

I love how honest this song is - the author is so upfront about his struggles about remaining close to the Lord. Instead of denying how he falls short, he asks God to seal his heart for the Father and to tune in better to His love. Coming back from my trip, my prayer is that the Lord would quiet all other distractions in my heart, and tune it to His love and grace. To start that, today I challenge you (and myself!) to set aside some time where you're really honest with God about what chokes out His presence in your life and where you focus on quieting those distractions in favor of the wonderful song of Christ's unchanging love!