“Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander…~ Jer. 14:10
The people of God did not go astray because of adversity; it was not necessitated by something outside themselves. They wandered because they loved it. They delighted in it. Their very disposition was to do so. The song-writer knew this when he penned, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it/Prone to leave the God I love.”
There is much concern today about the sheep who have wandered from the flock. My burden is for those who are wandering within the flock. They are always looking and longing—wanting something other than the Good Shepherd.
You can stake out a sheep with a hundred yards of rope, with green pastures all around him, yet he will go to the limit of his line, even to the point of choking himself in his attempt to go beyond his shepherd’s care and control. Only love for the Shepherd can cure our love for wandering.
Oh, 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.