A Willing Slave

 I've recently rediscovered Laura Story after following her for years as a writer, and sole contributor to Siler's Bald. She is an amazing writer, composer, and singer, and her hauntingly sweet voice touches something deep inside of me. In a recent search on iTunes for her newest release, Blessings, I found an album full of beautiful classics. It's been some time since I held a hymnal in my hands, inhaling the scent of those brittle, old pages that are coated with generations of the anointing of worshipers. I love the newer music, especially love prophetic worship for which there is no PowerPoint to follow or words on a page for that matter. But there really is something about the music of those who broke away from the oppressive religious dogma and found freedom in their new lives.


  


Bondage and worship are funny things when you think about it. A lot of people don't worship because of bondage, and a lot of people are freed from bondage through their worship. The founders of our faith had an intimate understanding of this concept, and through their rebellion and persistance we are now FREE to worship in the manner that suits our spirits and speaks to God.


 
All of that to share a new revelation of an old song that Laura Story recorded. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I'm sure most of us know the song and have probably sung it at some point in our lives. Standing in a row of pews, scanning the three lines of words that were broken by the musical notes we had to follow. ::: raises hand:::: I've been there. It's a classic opener and closer. Lot's of "thee's" and "thou's" sprinkled throughout as well. Recently, we sang this in our church; make that "mega church." The sound of three thousand voices rising to sing this song was quite beautiful, but there was ONE line that positively wrecked me, and I slipped out of the aisle and hit my knees with my face to the floor. Even before they sang the words, I remembed them, and it moved something deep inside of me. "Oh to grace how a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee." Do you know what a fetter is? It's like a shackle. It was used to constrain slaves; it's a form of bondage.  And yet, the writer (Robert Robertson; likely freed from relgious bondage himself) is pleading to be fettered, to be enslaved.

What an amazingly beautiful picture of the desire we have for our Papa God.

How I long to be fettered to the One who puts His love song inside of me. If I can for one moment in time somehow breach the constraints of time and space to touch His ear with that song pouring out of me, then I'll have succeeded as a worshiper.