Today I wrap up my analysis of this song, with the focus being on the last complete verse. Most of the remainder is chorus.
There’s hope for the hopeless
And all those who’ve strayed
Come sit at the table
Come taste the grace
There’s rest for the weary
Rest that endures
When you stop and think about it, there are many times when you have a hopeless feeling. We start asking ourselves questions such as how did I get here, how could this happen, how can I ever get out of this feeling of hopelessness and helplessness? The normal tendency is to exhaust all of our own ideas, maybe then we turn to internet research, we then probably turn to friends for their guidance, and once we are completely overwhelmed with our challenge, we turn to God. What’s wrong with this picture? It doesn’t mean we won’t have challenging times in our life, but we can probably decrease the amount of time in which we have that feeling of hopelessness. We need to see God first for answers since he has given us hope through eternal life offered by the death of his Son.
We all wander away from God at some time. There are times when we feel really close to him and there are times when we feel distant. We stray from God when we sort of forget him or move him to the back of our thoughts, we are no longer walking beside him and listening to him; we have gone off on our own path. This happens when we turn our focus to other things and we don’t read our bibles as we should, we don’t pray as often as we should, we don’t go to church as we should, and we aren’t the light that he wants us to be. If we had others ignore us as we sometimes ignore God, we would probably lose friends and the closeness of family. The good news is that he is a loving father and is always waiting for his children to find their way back to him. Reading the parable of the prodigal son tells us how God still loves us, not matter how far we have strayed or how long we have forgotten or ignored him.
God has already set his table for all of the people described above. It is a table of not just great food and drink, but a table of love, fellowship, a time of rest and relaxation, and time with our father. There are no restrictions on who comes to his table, he only asks that we accept his son as our savior and the table is open to all who have. He doesn’t ask where we have been, why we did what we did, or why we seemed to have forgotten him; he merely says I love you, I missed you, and welcome back. All of our sins have already been forgiven and forgotten, all we need to be focused on is to stay on the path the son has prepared for us. We are surrounded by grace, we have eternal life, and we have a path that Jesus has laid out for each of us and is walking with us along that path.
I believe the title of the song, Come As You Are, tells the complete story when it comes to our relationship with Christ.