Do you Want to be Forced to Love?

Robert Robinson, in his hymn "Come Thou Fount
of Every Blessing", makes an amazing theological
statement:

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.

See if you can catch it again in George Croly's
"Spirit of God, Descend Upon my Heart"

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth: through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty Thou art,
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

John Piper writes: "I have heard people object
to that last line. They say love should be free,
not forced. True. But there are two kinds of
forcing. One is against our will. The other is
by changing our will. The first results in coerced
action. The second results in free action. My own
suspicion is that those who object to this prayer
have never seriously confronted their own hard-
ness of heart. They have not taken seriously
enough our condition found in the word CANNOT
in Romans 8:7-8: 'The mind that is set on the
flesh... does not submit to God's law; indeed
it cannot.'"

Dear Lord, like a fetter (a chain) bind my wandering
heart to Thee! You are the only true Joy to be
found. Change our hearts (we cannot) to love you
and keep loving you. This is our daily prayer.