The Love That Never Ceases

On the evening of his sister's marriage, George Matheson was alone at home. Years earlier, he too had been engaged until his fiancé learned that he was going blind. Unable to bear the thought of marrying a blind man, she broke off their engagement. He went blind while studying for ministry and his sister was the one to take care of him. Under her care, he had excelled and was said to have preached regularly in a church to over 1,500 people each week. Who would care for him now? To compound matters, his sister's marriage brought back memories of his own heartbreak; of a love lost due to the tragedy of blindness.

As he sat disconsolate, perhaps contemplating his loneliness and his future, the enormous truth of God's everlasting love filled his soul. It was not unlike Paul's moment of truth when in response to the question, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35), he wrote, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (vv.37-39). This was a reaffirmation of the truth that God himself demonstrated when through Jeremiah He said to the families of Israel , "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee" (31:3).

Everlasting love has no end to it, and absolutely nothing can separate us from it. Regardless of circumstances, it is always there. That is the truth of God's promise, and the truth upon which every believer can rest. Matheson discovered that, and in less than five minutes was said to have written the grand old hymn that begins with the words, and whose title came from the first sentence:

"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."

What love! Have you known and experienced it?

Below, David Phelps, one of the best, if not the best tenor in gospel music, with a moving rendition of Matheson's song.



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