Robert Robinson's wandering soul

Robert Robinson is a name that few today know, but many know one of his hymns, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Take a look at the second verse:

2. 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.

Robinson was 22 years old at this point, yet already understood the Gospel enough to understood that he was far from worthy of the forgiveness and love of Jesus Christ. He embraced the grace and forgiveness and states that he raises an "Eben-ezer" to God as a reminder to himself and all around him that God alone had delivered him. I think that most Christians would grab hold of this story and want to claim it for their own, but Robinson didn't stop here. The third verse is sort of foretelling chapter:

3. 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.

Robinson, just a few years after writing this abandoned his position as a Baptist pastor (formerly Methodist) and wandered, estranged from God for nearly 50 years. Robinson believed that he was prone to wander, as I know so well that all of us (I know I feel this way) feel the desire to "leave the God we love", even though we love Him.

I think that the one of the primary reasons for this is that we stop feeling the need for the Gospel in our own lives. We need to DAILY preach the Gospel to ourselves. The Gospel isn't a one-time event in our lives that allows us to just try and be moral from then on. The Gospel requires a daily giving of ourselves over to the understanding that we are bigger sinners than we ever thought we were and that requires a bigger Savior than we thought Christ was (and He is!!).

Two great resources that I have recently found and love are this video from John Piper on preaching the Gospel to yourself and this article by Kaleo Church on preaching the Gospel to yourself.

As I walk through this life, I'm ever so thankful for the many people who have gone before me that encourage me to walk in a manner fitting of our Savior. To not leave you hanging, Robert Robinson, after nearly 50 years of wandering, stopped, turned around, and embraced the Savior he had been running from for so long just shortly before he died. What a mighty God we serve!