The Good Fruit Of Matheson’s Dark Despair (May 30, 2004)

George Matheson's great hymn, "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go," came to mind while I was preparing a message on Jesus' response to the despair of John the Baptist. As he waited in prison, John sank so low in discouragement that he sent word to Jesus asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" (Luke 7:19). Matheson likewise reached a place of darkness so severe that he came to doubt his faith - and this on the eve of entering the ministry! The elders of his church gave him time to collect himself, and he recovered his faith and went on to become one of Scotland's great preachers of the latter 19th century.

Matheson's darkness was literal - in his youth his vision was poor and he became completely blind by the age of 20. But his mind was a marvel, and he could memorize whatever was read aloud to him. His sermons - including all Scripture texts - he recited with such fluidity that visitors to his church often did not realize he was blind.

Extraordinary minds often dwell on extraordinary difficulties, and Mattheson was the sort who would probe answerless questions to the point of anguish. On the night of June 6, 1882, he experienced a "most severe mental suffering," the source of which he never revealed. The hymn that he then sat down to write he called "the fruit of that suffering." He wrote it in five minutes, as though taking dictation, and never again wrote another hymn as easily or as easily remembered. Here are the words - may they bless you.

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.

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.