“What’s your favorite song?” That’s a question that is quite common in today’s culture. Until a few years ago, I had a hard time responding. One song would be my favorite because of the lyrics and another because of the rhythm, and those favorites would change at the drop of a hat.
The lyrics are beautifully poetic but portray very simple truths. Over the past 258 years, thousands of artists have created their own versions of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
My personal favorite is my husband’s guitar rendition, which he plays using fingerpicks, as opposed to a single flatpick. That’s how he performed it as I walked down the aisle at our wedding (shown in the photo above).
Based on my research, I believe that these are the original lyrics, but as you’ll hear in the video embedded above, they have since been altered. What’s your favorite song?
“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
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 Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve 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;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, 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.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.