We live in the town(ship) of Hume. Hume residents have been dubbed “Humans.”
More specifically, we live in the hamlet (not a village, not a city, not a town) of Fillmore. Fillmore residents have been dubbed “Fillmorons.”
All this reminds me that we’re all sorry excuses for humanity. We are stupid and helpless, like sheep gone astray. We are unrighteous on our own. Isaiah 64:6: “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (NASB).
Throwing pop psychology to the wind, I’ll suggest that it’s often good to realize how unworthy we are. And I wish the editors of some modern hymnals had never seen fit to change the word from “worm” to one” in this reflective, old-favorite stanza:
Alas! and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?
I’m inspired by the last stanza even more:
But drops of grief can ne’er repay the debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away, ‘Tis all that I can do.
And this sentiment sends me into even richer, more historic lyrics, in the second stanza of “O Sacred Head,” which I’ve quoted here before:
What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this, Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.
May we ever connect our Messiah’s atoning death to our living, endeavoring to give everything back to Him.
