What does prone to wander mean

For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. The days ahead hold many distractions, many enticing pathways, many alluring agendas, and my heart is prone to wander. You and I are in desperate need for the grace of God to bind us to His own purpose and plan for our lives. Will you join me in this prayer?

Pray for your own heart. Pray for mine. Pray it for your church community. But he has a more serious, theological beef with the song. Prone to follow Jesus. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel He explains that although indwelling sin remains, it no longer dominates. The comments are interesting and Ricky Alcantar nails it in his defense of the hymn as he looks to the context of that verse, showing that the hymnwriter is pointing to a genuine tendency to wander.

Within our lives are these opposing desires to honor God and to honor self, to flee from sin and to flee to it. In good conscience I can continue to sing that I am prone to wander. But God also displays his power, his sovereignty, in destroying the grip sin once had on me. Hearts that are dead to sin and alive to God. The New Testament describes this spiritual heart surgery as being born again or made alive. It uses terms of profound ontological who we are as people change, like dark to light and death to life.

When God saves us, he changes us at the very core of our being. Our identity in Christ has completely changed. It does mean that our response to temptation has fundamentally changed. The Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, both convicts us of sin and gives us the power to put it to death. This is why Paul can say in Romans :. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. They were prone to wander. Not so with us.

The almighty, gloriously powerful Holy Spirit dwells in us, giving us the power to put to death the deeds of the flesh. I imagine that some of you are thinking, Well this seems like a whole lot of theological nitpicking. But I believe that the way we see ourselves dramatically influences our ability to fight sin and pursue holiness. In Romans , Paul says:.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. The starting place for overcoming sin and temptation is considering ourselves dead to sin.

When the temptation is so strong that it feels like we have to give into it. In those moments, we must remember that we have died to sin and been made alive to God. Our old selves that were prone to wander have died with Christ. Now we are alive to God and have the power to put sin to death. I'm a husband, dad, writer. I created The Blazing Center and have written some books which people seem to like. You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook. If you benefit from the site, would you consider being a supporter?

In other words: If I was left to my self, my own ways, my own desires, I would most likely wander. Knowing this tendancy, I am giving You my heart afresh, ever clinging to Your sustaining grace and relying on Your Holy Spirit to continue sanctifying me to look more like Jesus and to reflect Your glory in the way You have predestined me to. I feel the pressure of good, theologically accurate lyrics.

When appropriate, I may offer a brief exhortation or prayer about a questionable lyric that helps bring clarity our church practices 1 Cor.

This is a double edged sword like your post — it affirms right theology while also modeling the need to sing with ongoing understanding. Thanks for sharing this Mary. I like your point about using the next line to add context. We know that we still have a tendency to sin so we offer our lives up to the Lord and ask him to take our hearts. Great point! I think we unwittingly bring aspects of the old covenant into the new, embracing more continuity between the two covenants than Paul leave alone the writer of Hebrews ever demonstrated.

You can take time to share how you came to Christ, what He is teaching you in your life or even some of the struggles you have had and how God has helped you.

Ask them how you can pray for them and commit to praying for them. Return to God. Each of us has a heart that is prone to wander. For some it a fleeting decision and for others it is years of living a life apart from Christ. Wherever you are at, God wants you to return to Him.

He loves you regardless of what you have done. Take a moment and talk to God. Ask Him for forgiveness for what you have done.

If you need help getting out of your situation pray and ask someone to help you. It might be a pastor, ministry leader, family member or friends.