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(by George Matheson)
1. O Love that will 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
©1997 Christopher Miner Music.
History of Hymn
“O Love That Will Not Let
Me Go” written on the evening of Matheson’s sister’s marriage. His whole family
had went to the wedding and had left him alone. And he writes of something
which had happened to him that caused immense mental anguish. There is a story
of how years before, he had been engaged until his fiancé learned that he was
going blind, and there was nothing the doctors could do, and she told him that
she could not go through life with a blind man. He went blind while studying
for the ministry, and his sister had been the one who had taken care of him all
these years, but now she is gone. He had been a brilliant student, some say
that if he hadn’t went blind he could have been the leader of the church of
Scotland in his day. He had written a learned work on German theology and then
wrote “The Growth of The Spirit of Christianity.” Louis Benson says this
was a brilliant book but with some major mistakes in it. When some critics
pointed out the mistakes and charged him with being an inaccurate student he
was heartbroken. One of his friends wrote, “When he saw that for the
purposes of scholarship his blindness was a fatal hindrance, he withdrew from
the field – not without pangs, but finally.” So he turned to the pastoral
ministry, and the Lord has richly blessed him, finally bringing him to a church
where he regularly preached to over 1500 people each week. But he was only able
to do this because of the care of his sister and now she was married and gone.
Who will care for him, a blind man? Not only that, but his sister’s marriage
brought fresh reminder of his own heartbreak, over his fiancé’s refusal to
“go through life with a blind man.” It is the midst of this circumstance
and intense sadness that the Lord gives him this hymn – written he says in 5
minutes! Looking back over his life, he once wrote that his was “an
obstructed life, a circumscribed life… but a life of quenchless hopefulness, a
life which has beaten persistently against the cage of circumstance, and which
even at the time of abandoned work has said not “Good night” but “Good
morning.” How could he maintain quenchless hopefulness in the midst of such
circumstances and trials? His hymn gives us a clue. “I trace the rainbow in
the rain, and feel the promise is not vain” The rainbow image is not for
him “If the Lord gives you lemons make lemonade” but a picture of the
Lord’s commitment! It is a picture of the battle bow that appears when the
skies are darkening and threaten to open up and flood the world again in
judgment. But then we see that the battle bow is turned not towards us – but
toward the Lord Himself! |
