Hi From the Sky: On The Road to Happily Ever After!

George Matheson quote I love George Matheson. Can't wait to meet him in heaven (he died in 1902). He wrote one of my favorite hymns: "O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go" (he wrote it in about five minutes at one of the lowest points in his life ... he said it was like a "dayspring from on high" gave it to him). I will share the words of the hymn at the end of a short devotional of his I read today. The reading is based on the scripture "Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship" (Mt. 14:22) And we all know that just because the Lord tells you to go to the other side, doesn't mean there won't be storms on the way ... but JESUS is with us! And now here is George Matheson's profound take on that verse:

"Jesus constrained them to go! One would think that if ever there was the certain promise of success in a mission, it was here. Surely, here, if anywhere, a triumphant issue might have been confidently predicted; and yet here, more than anywhere, there was seeming failure. He sent them out on a voyage, and they met such a storm as they had never yet experienced. Let me ponder this, for it has been so with me, too. I have sometimes felt myself impelled to act by an influence which seemed above me ... constrained to put out to sea. The belief that I was constrained gave me confidence, and I was sure of a calm voyage. But the result was outward failure. The calm became a storm: the sea raged, the winds roared, the ship tossed in the midst of the waves and my enterprise was wrecked before it could reach the land. Was, then, my divine command a delusion? No, nor yet was my mission a failure. He did send me on that voyage, but He did not send me for my purpose. He had one end, and I had another. My end was the outward calm; His was my meeting with the storm. My end was to gain the harbor of a material rest; His was to teach me there is a rest even on the open sea." George Matheson

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go (by George Matheson)

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.