Second Week - This is Who Our God Is

It's been a minute since I posted - I don't want to get into a lot of detail about every little thing that happens ("I had to go pee twice during my infusion today!!" No thanks, TMI) but I do want to let people see my general trajectory because God is doing awesome things! So don't expect the level of detail from the first several posts, but do keep reading!

The update on the physical side is that there are very good indications in my blood work and a few more scans the doctor ordered that the chemo treatments are going very well. I've seen a few side effects, but on the whole they are still quite mild compared to what could happen and what does happen to others. God's hand is working! If you want gory details and you know me in person, don't be shy to ask. If you don't know me in person but you want to talk (maybe you're going through something yourself), do feel free to contact me, through the comments if you can't find another way.

Okay, here's what I really wanted to talk about. I've been very blessed for a number of years to be able to serve on my church's worship team, and I was rehearsing last week to serve this past Sunday. When I'm practicing the songs on my own, learning the lyrics and the music, I'm actually meditating on what they say... some of my best personal times of worship and communion with God happen when I'm practicing a song and I get a little choked up by what it's saying and I have to stop for a minute and just thank God for what He has done for me!

To preface what I'm going to say about one of the songs I was practicing this week, I have two items of context. The first thing is that my wife won a battle with cancer several years ago - the surgery that removed the last traces of it from her body will have happened three years ago in September. Completely cancer-free for three years! God did great things for her!

The second thing is that I've been listening a lot to a 40-year-old Carman song named "Prepare to Die". Saying it out of context makes it seem like a pretty morbid thing to listen to during cancer treatments, but actually it's not ME that is preparing to die, it's the CANCER that is preparing to die! The first verse tells the story of Goliath walking out onto the battlefield, seeing David, and basically telling David that he is going to wipe him off the face of the Earth... but then in the chorus, David tells Goliath that he is actually fighting the "God of the armies of Israel", so Goliath had better "prepare to die!" Then in the second verse, a giant walks out into the battlefield of our life, and as we stand there, the giant tells us it's going to wipe us out, because its name isn't Goliath... it's "Depression" or "Leukemia" or... "Cancer". Then the chorus rolls around, and like David, we become bold and aggressive, and we tell that giant of an enemy, "prepare to die!" (Here's a YouTube video of the song with lyrics, if you want to check it out!)

It's kind of amazing how a song you rocked out to when you were 15 hits differently when you're 55 and actually facing one of the giants Carman named in the song.

That said, fast forward to me rehearsing this song for our worship set:

One of the Scripture verses I've been going over and over in my mind during this situation is in Psalm 103:1-3: "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases..." Notice that spiritual salvation (forgiving all your iniquity) is placed on exactly the same level as physical healing (healing all your diseases). So I'm pretty sure Phil Wickham meant his song to be only about spiritual salvation, when I started singing this:

Remember those walls that we called sin and shame?
They were like prisons that we couldn't escape,
But He came, and He died, and He rose...
Those walls are rubble now.

I was hearing salvation of the soul. But when I sang the second part of the verse:

Remember those giants we called death and grave?
They were like mountains that stood in our way,
But He came, and He died, and He rose...
Those giants are dead now.

I couldn't help but think about the giants of disease from the Carman song, and how my wife would be dead and in a grave now from her cancer if not for the working of God in her life. We remember, and we need to remember! The last verse refers back to Exodus where God told His people to build altars and set up memorial stone to remind them of His goodness toward them:

Remember that fear that took our breath away?
Faith so weak that we could barely pray,
But He heard every word, every whisper.
Now those altars in the wilderness
Tell the story of His faithfulness - 
Never once did He fail, and He never will!

As I'm going through whatever I go through on the way to my full restoration, which I know with certainty in my heart is on its way, I can look back to the memorial altars... the big one is that day she got to ring the "I'm cured!" bell at the treatment center... but there are plenty more things that we can look back on from that wilderness time for us, and say, "THIS is what our God is like. He saved Cat's life, and not He's saving Michael's life!"

At the risk of sounding simplistic or saccharine, I want to tell you with all of the honesty in my heart. GOD CAN AND WILL DO THE SAME FOR YOU. You just have to choose to trust Him, and He won't let you down!

 

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For the full story of my cancer journey, start here - or just explore all of the posts I've tagged "cancer".

Worthy

This week at my church the worship songs were all about how Jesus is worthy of our praise. Whenever I hear a song like that, my mind immediately thinks, sure, God is worthy of praise, but what makes MY praise desirable to a holy God? In Isaiah it says that our sin makes even our righteousness like "filthy rags". What does God want with my filthy rags praise and worship?

 

Years ago the church I was attending had a worship choir. Every Sunday we were up there on the stage, singing along with the worship team. Some Sundays we would perform a choir piece, but regardless, every Sunday we were up there during the worship part. One Sunday a young lady was asking about being in the choir, and I encouraged her to show up for rehearsal and see if she liked it. "Oh, I don't know. I don't think I'm good enough," she told me. "It's okay," I said, "we have people with all skill levels in our choir. You don't have to be an expert singer to participate." "No, you don't understand," she told me. "I don't think I'm good enough."

Have you ever played a game with a very small child? Every kid is different, and things get different as they get older, but usually when I play a game with a really little kid, I want them to win. I want them to succeed. I don't want to beat them! I want them to experience victory! So what do I do? I throw the match. I play like a complete moron. Or I take the deck of cards and stack them so the kid always gets the good cards. Whatever it is, though, I try to give the child a victory. Why? Because I can, and I want them to know that they are a winner. I want to give them success! Did they earn it? Well, they probably played the best they could, but in the end, they couldn't beat an adult. They couldn't win without my help!

This week listening to these songs I remembered and internalized something I already knew in my mind - that our praise and our worship are worthy of God because they are placed there by God in the first place! Our personal goodness is irrelevant. It was a game we couldn't win. We had less of a chance than a toddler winning a chess match against a grand master. The deck wasn't just stacked against us - we didn't even get any cards! There was no way we could be worthy enough to reach to God. There is no way we could ever be "good enough." We were destined to fail.

Then Jesus entered the picture.

Jesus was the only person who was unstained by sin. He was the only one who could ever win the chess match, who could ever beat the house, who could ever hope to get the ball into the basket. Jesus lived a life of righteousness when none of us ever could, and then by dying on the cross, Jesus made that righteousness available to us. He won the Super Bowl, but we get to stand on the stage and receive the trophy! We weren't worthy of anything good - but Jesus made us worthy!

Our praise is worthy of a holy God because it comes from the righteousness placed in us by Him. He's stacked the deck for us! He's worthy of our praise, and we can't help it - our praise is worthy to be offered! Are you still asking yourself "But am I good enough?" Well, the answer is, NO, you're not. Or at least you weren't. But the moment you received Jesus, asked Him to be Lord of your life, His worthiness became yours. So give Him your praise!

Song Thoughts: "Build My Life"

Worthy of every song we could ever sing
Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe
We live for You

...

Holy, there is no one like You
There is none beside You
Open up my eyes in wonder...

from "Build My Life" as recorded by Housefires

Wait just a sec. Jesus is holy, yes. There is nobody else holy like He is. That includes me. So that means that every song I could ever sing and every breath I could ever breathe are tainted. Everything I do on this plane of existence is just a little bit messed up. Why would God possibly want the messed-up offering I have of imperfect praise from a person who daily has to fight just to keep from committing a new sin, not to mention the number of sins I've committed over the years of my lifetime? That's like saying "You did good work building me this house! You are worthy of payment! Here's ten cents, plus a half-eaten peppermint I found in my pocket! Sorry about the lint." Why would a holy God possibly want to be worthy of the meager, messed up, out of tune and out of whack praise we would be able to offer?

Within ourselves, we cannot offer God anything of high enough value to honor Him. We don't have anything that valuable. That's why we shouldn't live and exist in the context of our own worthiness - we don't have any! Only Jesus is truly worthy. BUT: the amazingly cool and exciting thing about the message of the cross is that when Jesus died, He took all of our unworthiness down with Him. All of the stain, all the guilt before God of every sin we have committed or will commit, when we choose to accept what He has done for us, is paid for and removed from us!

Jesus made us worthy. Because of that, we can offer praise that God accepts as a sweet scent, an offering fit for the only One holy enough to deserve it. With every breath you breathe, live for Him!

I Can't Help But Sing

I've been working on a new worship-style song - I thought I'd share it!

I Can’t Help But Sing

by Michael Jones

You are the One Who gives me breath

I can’t help but sing

You are the music on my lips

I can’t help but sing

  

You’re the One Who gives me life

You have given me a heart to beat

You’ve provided everything

I can’t help but sing

You have wrapped me in Your love

I can’t help but sing

You have clothed me in Your peace

I can’t help but sing

Hallelujah!

Song Thoughts: "Great Are You Lord"

It's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, pour out our praise... - "Great Are You Lord"

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1:17 ESV

Every time we sing this song and I get to the chorus, and take a deep breath to belt it out, I think, "Jesus, You're putting this air into my lungs. And you're putting this worship in my heart."

You do realize that every time your heart beats, it's because Jesus made it beat, right? Every time you wake up, it's because He gave you another day to wake up in. Every time your muscles make your body move, every time your eyes blink, every time your body turns food into fuel to keep you alive - it's because Jesus did it.

But more than that: the worship He put into your heart actually belongs to Him in the first place. When we say "You are worthy of praise" it doesn't mean the same thing as it does when we, say, make flattering statements about a successful athlete or celebrity or even our family member or child.

The worship actually belongs to Him, and always has.

As worshipers, we are a vessel to deliver back to God something He entrusted us with, something that belongs to Him. Because nobody but Him deserves it. He put the breath in your lungs, He put the worship in your heart, and when you use one to give another back to Him, it's simply completing the circle, bringing you closer to Him.

You give life. You are love. You bring light to the darkness.
You give hope. You restore ev'ry heart that is broken, and great are You Lord!

It's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise!
It's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise to You only!

And all the earth will shout Your praise. Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing, "Great are You Lord!"

Song thoughts: "Your Love Awakens Me"

I'm writing up a series of short devotionals for the worship team at my church, based on the songs we do during the service, and I thought it would be cool to share them here too. Here's the first one!

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1:4-5 ESV

I love how this song uses the images of death/darkness interchangeably, and life/light interchangeably. In our culture when we think of light, we tend to think of knowledge – which is a totally valid way of looking at it, and when Jesus brings “light” to our lives by saving us, spiritual understanding is certainly a part of it. But to ancient peoples, light was synonymous with life itself. With no sunshine, your crops will die, and eventually so will you. The light that Jesus brings is more than a source of knowing stuff about God… it is a source of life itself!

I also love the way the first verse uses words that relate to being imprisoned, but then in the pre-chorus we realize that the prison we were released from was actually death! How vivid is that idea of being in a cold, dark, deathly prison – but then suddenly God bursts in, kicking down walls and tearing off chains, and leading us into bright sunshine and light!

Did you notice that the first verse and pre-chorus are in past tense – things Jesus has done – and the chorus and second verse are in present tense? God did something for humanity on the Cross, and the effects continue to be felt and to cause things to happen. None of us is perfect – there are things in each of our lives that still haven’t found their way into the light of God’s life. Jesus continues to draw us out, wake us up, bring those parts of us back to life! Everything in creation sings “We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”, and we shout it out too!

There were walls between us,
By the cross you came and broke them down – You broke them down!
There were chains around us,
By Your grace we are no longer bound, no longer bound!

You called me out from the grave, You called me into the light!
You called my name and then my heart came alive!

Your love is greater!
Your love is stronger!
Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!

Feel the darkness shaking!
All the dead are coming back to life, oh, back to life!
Hear the song awaken, 
All creation singing “We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”

You called me out from the grave, You called me into the light!
You called my name and then my heart came alive!

Your love is greater!
Your love is stronger!
Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!

What a love we found!
Death can’t hold us down!
We shout it out, “We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”

Your love is greater!
Your love is stronger!
Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!

Reasons

Bless the Lord, oh my soul - oh my soul
Worship His Holy name
Sing like never before, oh my soul
I'll worship Your Holy name

Two years ago today, my phone rang. It was my mom, and she said to me, "Your daddy died."

Instinctively I clicked into "do what needs to be done" mode, and I said into the phone, "I'll be right over." But then it sank in what she had said, and in a voice that even as it came out of my mouth sounded to me like the voice of a little kid, I squeaked, "He died?"

Yes he had. He and my mom had had a nice evening together, talked and enjoyed each other's company, and then they went to sleep. My dad woke up with Jesus.

At his memorial service, my wife and I sang "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)" for the crowd. I had sung it at a men's breakfast a month or two earlier and Dad had been present, and I wanted to share with the crowd the last song he had heard me sing. Apparently our performance was memorable, at least for our family; several of them have told me since that they can't hear the song without thinking of that day. It bothers me that I've turned this beautiful, meaningful song into something painful for all of us — something that reminds us of the pain of Dad's death instead of what I intended. I wanted to take this opportunity to explain why I thought the song was an appropriate memorial, and hopefully in the process, re-frame it a bit for the family. Maybe even bring a bit of healing.

The sun comes up; it's a new day dawning.
It's time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.

I had heard it before, but I first fell in love with this song when I heard a delicate, intimate acoustic version recorded by Rend Collective. At the time my son was in junior high school, and I was driving him to school every day. The school is on the east side of town, so often we were driving straight into a beautiful sunrise. One morning he and I listened to this song on the way; it's quite a great way to focus on Jesus first thing.

I think it's important to understand that worship is not a melody and lyrics. Worship is something that is inside your heart. It's your attitude of adoration and thankfulness to God that is the real worship. Sure, making music is a great way to express your worship, but you can also express your worship through prayer, or showing love to someone who needs it, or just through choosing to live your life in the way you know in your heart pleases God. You can't literally sing all day, any more than you can literally "pray without ceasing". "Singing" in the context of this song is on one level referring to making actual music, but on another level it is a metaphor for living your life for Christ.

You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger;
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind.
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing —
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

My dad was a good man. But he wasn't a perfect man. In the two years since he passed I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about him and his life; in sorting out some of his stuff my brother and I learned details about him that we never knew. I think there were things on his heart to do with his life that he simply never got around to doing. But the one thing that he did do, all the time and every day, was believe that God is good, and had good things in mind for him and for his family. He had frustrations and things that upset him and setbacks and I know he had plenty of times when he felt pretty unhappy, but through my whole childhood he never gave up on God. He took us to church, we had Bibles and books about God around the house, we listened to Christian music. Despite what sometimes looked like evidence to the contrary, Dad never gave up believing that God loved him... loved us... and that it was worth it, living for Jesus. My dad could sing a bit, but he didn't much; his worship was lived out every day.

And on that day when my strength is failing,
The end draws near and my time has come,
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending...
Ten thousand years and then forevermore.
Forevermore!

My dad was still worshiping with his life up until the night he moved away from Earth in favor of a much better location. The night before he went to be with Jesus was spent loving his wife, whom he had stuck with through thick and thin in 45 years of marriage. He was still going to church, taking classes about the Bible, and seeking God's will for his life. What I love about this song is that it starts at sunrise and goes to sunset — from beginning of life to end of life — and communicates a very simple message: God is wonderful, and it's worth it to spend your whole life, "everything you have" so to speak, in order to gain His kingdom.

One day, unless Jesus comes back first, it will be my turn to leave this world and enter Heaven. When that happens, I hope that I've followed my dad's example of seeking after Jesus every day of my life on Earth. It's a goal worth following. I hope my family members, when they read this, will be able to see this song in a new light. The song is about you and me and our response to God. I don't want this song to be about our sorrow that Dad was gone. But I think it's okay if we think of him when we hear this song, because I think his life illustrates what this song is reminding us to do. He made mistakes, but he "sang" with his actions a song of worship to God from sunrise to his final sunset. I hope that from now on, hearing this song will inspire us to try as hard as my dad did to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul - oh my soul
Worship His Holy name
Sing like never before, oh my soul
I'll worship Your Holy name!
I'll worship Your Holy name!
I'll worship Your Holy name!

Know The Author

In my last post I mentioned a new book written by a couple named Danny & Darci Cahill. Danny is best known as the winner of Season 8 of the United States edition of TVs The Biggest Loser. But Danny's story doesn't end, or even start there... like everyone else, Danny has a back-story that begins in childhood; his explains why he wound up so obese he could barely walk. And there are of course others in his life whose stories intersect with his, one of the most important being his wife Darci. Their book Losing Big is a double autobiography, a kind of team effort where their childhood narratives are told up until the time that they meet, and then their two stories are weaved together from that point throughout their marriage to the present. It's a very interesting way to write a book, laying out the whole tale in the third person so you never know who actually wrote the specific part you are reading. It almost has a voyeuristic flavor to it, as though you are looking at them through a window instead of having their story told to you by them personally, but it retains the flavor of having been written by the couple themselves. It is at times exciting, at times heartbreaking, and at times joyful... just like real life.

But for me, the book is a little different than it might be for you, because I am actually acquainted with Danny and Darci. And not via emails, phone calls, or interviewing them for a Web site... my wife and I know them personally, and have for several years (even before Danny went on The Biggest Loser). We sang on a church worship team with Danny playing bass. My wife taught Vacation Bible School with their daughter; my son and their son are friends. We've had a chance to interact with them socially. We already have an idea of what they are like, so when we read the book, we see it a little differently. Because we know the authors.

As a Christian, I know a lot of people who read the Bible, or at least who are familiar with parts of it. I've discussed it with people, and I've read other books discussing parts of the Bible. I've blogged about it here, of course. But there is a problem with reading the Bible: you can't truly understand what it is trying to say unless you know the author. Okay, okay, I know that pen was put to paper by Moses, David, Solomon, Paul, various disciples, and maybe a couple dozen prophets and other people, but as a Christian, I believe that the whole of the Bible was inspired by one single author, God Himself. The Bible is one one level an anthology of writings by many writers, but the whole thing is a narrative about God's redemption of humankind. That bigger story cannot be fully appreciated, or maybe even comprehended, until you become acquainted with God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ.

I perceive Losing Big differently because I know Danny and Darci (by the way, Danny does speaking engagements quite frequently, so check his calendar and you may get a chance to meet him too!). I'd like to think that I understand their book a little better because I know them, and maybe I understand them a little better because I've read the book. The Bible is the same way, and this is why prayer and personal worship times are so critical: when you know Jesus, you can understand God's Word better, and when you know the Bible, you can understand God a little better. Either without the other gives you an incomplete picture. Experience without knowledge only goes so far, and scholarship without intimacy only goes so far. Both are critical to live a balanced and successful Christian life.


Have something to say about knowing "the author" of the Bible? Do you think personal communion with God is more important than Bible study, or vice versa? Have I been name-dropping Danny too much? (I probably should tell him I've been blogging about him!) Sound off by clicking the "Comments" link below this post!

Hard Worship (Worship, Part 5)

Sometimes it's hard to worship God.

Sometimes I'm tired when I get to church. Sometimes I had a hard time with my kids right before we got there. Sometimes I had a tough day at work before an evening service, or a tough week of work before a Sunday morning service.

Sometimes I don't like the songs the worship leader chose. Sometimes I don't know the words very well, or I don't like the way the song is written, or I don't care for the rewrite.

Sometimes the bass guitar is too loud, or I don't like the voice of the person who is leading a particular song, or the guy standing right behind me is singing really out of key.

Sometimes there are a lot of people and I feel crowded. Sometimes there aren't very many people and I feel self-conscious. Sometimes it was hot outside and I feel a little sweaty - sometimes it's too cold inside and I just want to put on my jacket and put my hands in my pockets.

Sometimes it's hard to worship God.

But sometimes, it's easy to worship God.

Sometimes I feel good when I get to church. Sometimes every song is one of my favorites, the band sounds good, the singers are showing us how it's done, they're playing them in my key, and I couldn't be happier if I was in the front row at a Chris Tomlin concert.

Sometimes it's easy.

But then I start to wonder: am I really worshiping God they way I want to? Really communing with my Savior? Really reaching my heart out to him? It can actually be pretty easy just to enjoy singing for singing's sake, like singing along at a Beatles concert, but never actually open your heart to God.

And sometimes, when it's so hard to worship that you feel like you might have turned into that stone statue up there, although you may not feel good or you may be distracted by any of a zillion little things, you may be doing your level best to stretch your heart out to touch God.

In the one case, you can think you succeeded in worshiping God when you actually haven't. In the other case, you may feel like you've been an utter failure at worshiping God, but God may be saying "Well done!"

My perspective on musical worship services has been the same since I was in college. I attended Oral Roberts University (which is a great school... look into it if you're a high schooler!) and was required to attend chapel services a couple times a week. The music could tend to be repetitive. Sometimes it seemed like the chapel band only knew about five songs, and we sang them again and again, every service, the same arrangement, even the same order. I'm sure it wasn't actually like that, but it certainly seemed like it! It got a little monotonous, and after a while I found myself sort of checking out during the music part.

Then one day when I was sort of standing there watching, maybe even rolling my eyes a little bit, I could sense a small voice inside of me saying something like, "Your worship doesn't depend on what song is playing."

That was a revelation to me, and like an explosion or like a blooming flower, the whole concept began to open up and expand until it filled my whole perception of what worship is all about. Worship is NOT about anything going on in the physical world. Worship is all about what is going on inside your heart. Suddenly I realized that I could worship God, and sing that song I was bored with, and my worship could be pleasing to Him!

So when it's hard to participate in the physical part of worship, or when you kind of don't feel like doing it, do your best. This is God we're talking about here. He created you, He gave you life, and then when you threw it away, at tremendous cost to Himself He bought it back for you again. All worship is, is taking the time to love God. If you don't feel like it but you do it anyway, that's worship. And if you do feel like it but then you're just expressing enthusiasm for music or happiness with your life - well, maybe it's worship or maybe it's not. In those situations when participation is easy, sometimes real authentic worship is not.

But no matter if you feel bad or you feel good, authentic worship is always possible. So do it. Love Jesus back! You do know He's loving you already, even right now as you read this, right? Worship is just reciprocating that love from deep down in your heart. Sure, you should sing, you should raise your hands if you like, you should dance if you are so inclined. But while you're doing that, don't forget to worship God.

After all, it's not so hard, is it?


I hope you've enjoyed this week worth of blog posts about worship! I actually did not start out with much of a plan in mind, but I did know that I had a few things to talk about, so I decided to go the mini-series route and see what happened. As it turned out, some themes did emerge. Here's the rest of the series, in case you missed it:

Disobedient to the Songs - in which I confessed that sometimes I don't do things I am singing about
Oddly Sexual - in which I explained that Jesus is not our girlfriend, but we are His (sort of), so using relationship metaphors in worship is not creepy
Hand Raising Styles - in which I worried that a comedy bit by Tim Hawkins has the potential to distract people from worship
Sloppy & Wet - in which I threw my hat into the ring on a controversial lyric in a popular worship song, and then said it doesn't matter anyway

Take a look at all four of those, if you haven't already, and then sound off in the comments section of any or each. And don't forget to add your comments to the discussion about this post! Just find the link that says "COMMENTS" or "POST A COMMENT" and click it to tell me what you think!

Sloppy & Wet (Worship, Part 4)

Heaven Meets Earth, Like
Shaq Palming a Basketball

There's been some controversy surrounding one line of the song "How He Loves", which was written by John Mark McMillan and recorded by, I don't know, everyone on the planet, and also David Crowder Band. I've already mentioned it on this blog, in this entry from a year and a half ago. If you Google the phrase "Sloppy Wet Kiss", you will find that a lot of people have weighed in on it, and even John Mark has explained how the David Crowder Band "Unforeseen Kiss" version came to be. And although if you've been reading all week, you've already found out that I think sexual metaphors can be appropriate in worship music (God uses them Himself, all through the Bible), I'm not here to defend or condemn either version. I think it's a beautiful, expressive song, and if one way or another is how you worship best, then by all means, sing it that way.

But I do have an opinion. And in my opinion, as much as I love David Crowder's music, the line "Heaven meets Earth, like an unforeseen kiss" doesn't make any sense.

In the song, when Heaven and Earth meet in something with qualities similar to a kiss, is it an accident? Did they simply bump into each other? "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Sorry about kissing you like that. My bad." Of course not... the song is about how much God loves us, and there's no love in something that happens by accident. The words "Heaven" and "Earth" are used metaphorically for God and mankind, and I guess the idea is that the kiss was unforeseen by mankind, but nothing is unforeseen by God. Someone always thinks about a kiss before it happens; there's no such thing as an "unforeseen kiss."

Worse still, I don't think "unforeseen kiss" carries the same weight of emotion as "sloppy wet kiss". I think the original line wakes a person up, challenges them. Why not step back for a moment and consider how the love of God for mankind could be so passionate that it was like a REALLY smooshy, undignified kiss between two people who are lost in each other? Even the word "sloppy" grabs your attention because it's so  awkward to sing. Why shouldn't it be left in there? It's a shame to take something that could challenge people's idea of what God is like out of the song, and put in something that is not challenging at all, and that doesn't even really make that much sense.

I think your worship music should challenge you. It should draw you closer to God, and it should encourage you to think about God. As an exercise, even if your worship leader goes the "unforeseen" route, maybe for the next few days you could think about both versions of the lyric, what they mean, how each is appropriate or inappropriate. You might take a look at the passage from Psalms which I quoted in my earlier blog post in reference to the "sloppy wet" version. Maybe one or both versions of the lyric will become more meaningful to you as a result. You might also be interested to take a look at this video/post about how the song originally came to be written. It was a messy situation indeed.

Then, once you've looked at the line from all angles, when you sing whichever one you sing, sing it with all of your heart. Because He does love us. He really, really does.


Does God love you in a "sloppy wet" way, or in more of an "unforeseen" way? How do you feel about the original lyric, the David Crowder altered version, or even some other version you've heard and/or sung? Is "sloppy wet" too raw, too sexual, too human, too gross, or just right? Or am I just beating a horse that died a year ago when people moved on to some other song in their worship services? Sound off below in the comments!

Hand Raising Styles (Worship, Part 3)

Maybe I'm too sensitive. I mean, I think it's really pretty funny, but... well, take a look for yourself and I'll save my comments for after:

The Cliff's Notes Version

Tim Hawkins is hysterical. And this bit is lots of fun; people have a great reaction to it. I've seen it on Facebook a number of times. It really does cover a lot of the "poses" you might see in church; Tim Hawkins clearly has been in a lot of those hand-raising type services (although I'm not sure he was the first one to give the poses names). I don't at all want to throw cold water on Tim's comedy bit or spoil anyone's fun. But this routine makes me a little bit nervous.

Nervous? Why? It's all humor, right? Of course it is, and if Tim reads this, I hope he understands that I've laughed like a nut at his stuff, and I laughed at this video too. But it makes me nervous because I find that I tend to be self-conscious.

There have been times when I was in worship, way before I ever saw this comedy routine, that I consciously thought about how I looked when I was raising my hands. What message am I sending, I thought, to the people around me? Do I look like I'm worshiping God right? Am I praise-y enough? Maybe I should raise my hands another half-inch or something so people know I'm really worshiping. I don't want to look like I don't love God enough! I know that was silly, and probably a little self-centered, but I'm being real with you here. Maybe no thoughts like that have ever gone through your mind, but they went through mine.

And they were totally ridiculous! Who am I raising my hands for, anyway? If it's not for God, then I should probably keep my hands in my pockets and just sing or pray or say "thank you Jesus" or whatever. Raising your hands shouldn't be a signal to those around you; it should be a sign of your love for God. It should be for Him. If that's not why you're doing it, then all you're really doing is making your arms tired.

But what does that have to do with a comedy routine? Well, the first time I saw this, after I stopped laughing (or actually, it might have even been while I was laughing), something occurred to me. The next time I am in worship, which pose will I be doing? Will I be carrying the baby or signaling a touchdown? Will the palm of my hand be pointing the right way? I've actually been present when people were debating the merits of having your palm facing forward ("surrender") or upward ("Abba Daddy!") Does it really matter? Of course it doesn't matter... except that it matters if you are thinking about the angle of your hand instead of communing with your Savior. I think there's a danger that having this in your head during worship time might present a distraction that folks just don't really need.

Of course, just the act of writing a blog like this one means that I'm probably doing the same thing. My post from a couple of days ago, for example, might wind up having you analyzing song lyrics during the service instead of just singing them and enjoying time with Jesus. I guess my point is that worship is a time that you should be spending worshiping, and anything that distracts you from that is something you need to kind of deal with. I broke away from worrying about whether my hands were at the right elevation by just realizing that I have no reason to care if someone likes where my hands are! So now,  raise when I want to raise, and I pocket when I want to pocket, and I do my best to have my love aimed at Jesus either way. Hopefully this whole blog post sounds like nonsense to you and you've never been self-conscious in worship - but if you're the person who still is, I encourage you to just forget about anything bu Jesus when it's time to praise Him. Because who cares what someone else things when you're loving Jesus?

Am I off my rocker with this? Is my Asperger's Syndrome getting the best of me? I'd like to hear from people who have wrestled with being self-conscious during worship, and people who never do have trouble with that. Join the discussion below in the comments section! 

Oddly Sexual (Worship, Part 2)

Have you ever heard someone say that a song has "Jesus is my girlfriend lyrics"? The first time I heard that said was back in the 1980s, when some Christian pop and rock artists appeared to take the approach of writing songs that were about God (wink, wink!) but that didn't actually mention Him by name, and were written in such a way that they could be misunderstood as being about a romantic relationship. The idea was to still perform music that would appeal to a church crowd, but also to perhaps attract a wider audience. The graph on this page is a commentary on this, ironically saying that almost all Christian music is like that.

I disagree with the graph on two points. First, I disagree that almost all of Christian music is like that; I think there's plenty of Christian music out there that talks about things other than a "Jesus is my girlfriend" relationship with our Savior.

Second, I disagree that there is anything wrong with describing our relationship with God using metaphors that are sexual in nature. I think that's perfectly fine!

Now, don't get me wrong. There's a limit to how far you can go with that, and obviously describing the sex act itself is crossing the line a bit. But God described His relationship to His people that way many times; the story the Bible tells is about God reaching out to mankind, mankind stumbling and ultimately failing God, and God reaching out again and ultimately restoring His relationship to His people, and God often uses male/female metaphors to help us understand it. And God apparently doesn't mind being a bit graphic. In fact, there are a few places where, if I were the editor of the Bible, I would have been like, "Woah, God... you're crossing the line a little bit with that one!"

You can find the beginning of the story in Ezekiel 16. Speaking of when God first chose the nation of Israel to be His people, it says "...you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’" A little bit graphic, isn't it? But it gets more graphic. Don't read these parts of the Bible to your kids!

Continuing: "I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine." This is a reference to betrothal, God becoming "engaged to be married" to His people. But wait... the engagement happened while God was looking at her "naked and bare" and considering the state of her breasts and whether she was at "the age for love"? Scandalous!

God and His bride, the beautiful girl He had rescued as an infant, became married. But things went downhill from there. "But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his." The beautiful wife decided to become a prostitute. And not a reluctant prostitute, either: "...you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring." Later on it says that she actually had sex with some "lovers" whom she "loved", and some she didn't even like but "hated"! Apparently she didn't care if she liked them or not, as long as the action was happening.

I'll leave it to you to read the chapter and see what God says will happen to His wayward bride and her lovers. Warning: Rated PG-13 for violence and sexual themes.

If the PG-13 violence of Ezekiel 16 isn't enough for you, maybe you'll enjoy the even more graphic descriptions of the conduct of God's people in Ezekiel 23 (Warning: Rated R for Graphic Sexuality): "She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her." "She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way." "Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses."

"Members like donkeys"? "Issue like horses"? Are you kidding me?? Maybe I should have rated this chapter NC-17! (Fortunately, this does not qualify as an "oddly sexual" metaphor, as the graph indicates. This metaphor is blatant and graphic!)

The poem in Hosea 2 carries on the theme of Israel being an unfaithful wife who has taken up prostitution, with God saying to the (illegitimate) children of the woman, "Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts..." This time, though, there is a gleam of hope at the end: "...behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her... And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband’... and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness."

God has always sought to restore the relationship with His wayward Bride. Isaiah 54 is God's longing vision of this restoration:

    “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
        be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
    for you will forget the shame of your youth,
        and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
    For your Maker is your husband,
        the LORD of hosts is his name;
    and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
        the God of the whole earth he is called.
    For the LORD has called you
        like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
    like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
        says your God.
    For a brief moment I deserted you,
        but with great compassion I will gather you.
    In overflowing anger for a moment
        I hid my face from you,
    but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
        says the LORD, your Redeemer.
Isaiah 54:4-8 ESV

There's more... it's a beautiful chapter. I invite you to click over or open a Bible and read through it; a lovlier and more heartfelt description of a loving husband's forgiveness of his wife's unfaithfulness has not been written. It will bring tears to your eyes.

God has not abandoned this metaphor in the Church Age. Paul said to the church in Corinth, "For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:2 ESV) In Ephesians 5:25-27 he makes it clear that the relationship between a husband and wife is just like the relationship between Christ and the Church, and is almost certainly referring to that chapter in Ezekiel 16 that I mentioned earlier in this post.

So what does this all have to do with worship? Well, you may find that the songs you sing in church services talk a lot about loving God, embracing Him, Him being "beautiful" or "lovely", etc. Since Jesus walked on Earth as a human male, this kind of language might sometimes be easier for a woman to fully buy into than a man; what man walks up to a buddy and says, "Hey man, you look beautiful today!" But it is fully OK to use man and wife imagery as a reference of the relationship between God and mankind, and I think it's OK to use that kind of intimate language to refer to the relationship between each of us and Jesus.

Because even though Jesus is not our girlfriend, as it turns out, we are His!

I've said some pretty controversial things in this blog post, and I've included some passages from the Old Testament prophets that are quite graphic. Do you think that sexual imagery is appropriate in a worship setting? Should it be as overt as the metaphors in these passages, or should it be a little more understated? Do you disagree with my analysis that the people of God are indeed thought of as His "girlfriend" (okay, I'll go with "bride")? Join the discussion in the Comments section below! Also, don't miss Part 1 of this one-week series on Worship!

Disobedient to the Songs (Worship, Part 1)

The Worship Police

I have been disobedient lately. And maybe a bit of a liar.

These are things I have said that I was doing, but I actually didn't do them at all:

• Fall on my knees
• Lift my hands and spin around
• Stand with arms wide open
• Running to your arms
• Bow down before you now
• Shout out, sing loud
• Find myself here on my knees again

But it gets worse. Much worse. You see, I didn't lie about doing these things while sitting on my couch with my wife, or at Starbuck's with a friend, or even on Facebook with who-knows-who. I said these things... in church.

And it gets EVEN WORSE.

I wasn't just in the vestibule of the church talking about doing these things. I wasn't at Men's Breakfast on a Saturday morning, or chaperoning some Youth Group event, or even confessing to the pastor.

I was right in the sanctuary. During worship. Singing those phrases.

TO GOD.

Yes. I lied, directly in God's face, during a time specifically intended to show Him love and respect. And what did I do? I sang to Him that I was "running to His arms" when in actuality, I wasn't running at all. I was standing still not even walking. Arguably, barely moving. I wasn't shouting out, or falling on my knees (ouch!), bowing down or spinning around. I may not have even had my hands lifted or my arms wide open.

Why do people who write worship songs put this kind of stuff in them? Certainly, everyone is supposed to be participating, and singing (loud or otherwise) and even lifting hands are appropriate in many churches. Bowing down, yes, if the situation is appropriate and the mood strikes. But most churches don't do that much spinning and running during services. So why do these songwriters force us to lie like that?

I'll take it a step further. I would be surprised to find out that any of the people who wrote those lines were actually doing what they were writing, as they were writing it. Although I would like to see someone trying to write "I'm running to Your arms" on a sheet of paper while actually running, or "lift my hands and spin around" while actually lifting their hands and spinning around. Those folks were making liars out of themselves as they wrote the lines on the paper! I guarantee that each of these songwriters, as they wrote those lines down, was sitting somewhere with a pen or pencil (or a laptop, or whatever) and not doing any worshippy actions at all.

I'm not particularly a person who likes to be told what to do. I don't consider myself rebellious, but I like to be authentic... if I raise my hands, I want it to be because I felt love for God well up in me and my body wanted to express it that way. If I shout, I want it to be because a shout built up in me until keeping it in wasn't an option anymore. Once upon a time, I would kind of feel guilty if a song said something like "I wave unto God" and I didn't wave. Or "Shout to the Lord" and I didn't shout (by the way, who actually does shout during that song? Nobody!) I would feel like I was being disobedient, and on one level, I suppose I am.

But that's not the important level.

Worship, I've learned, comes from your heart. Not from your hands clapping, or your feet jumping or dnacing, or even from your voice singing. Worship, like everything else that matters at all to God, occurs long before it is visible to the naked eye. Things that you do during the worship service are only the physical sign of something that has already occurred on the inside. So you don't have to fall on your knees, earning yourself a visit to minor emergency because you've fractured both of your kneecaps. You can worship God standing up.

But don't refuse to lift up your hands just because you want to be difficult, either. Because you know what else occurs in your heart before the action occurs on the outside? Rebellion. Resistance to authority. If you're refusing to play Worship Simon Says on principle, then you're actually being counterproductive to worship... you're distancing yourself from God.

Make sure the next time you are in worship that you are offering your heart to God. Not your hands, although they are His, not your clapping or your singing or your running or jumping or standing on your head, but your heart. That's what God really wants. If you've got that going on, it doesn't really matter if your voice shouts to the Lord or not. Your heart does the shouting for you.

This week I have several posts planned about worship - I hope you enjoy them! What are your thoughts about worship songs that tell people what to do? Are they like playing Red Light, Green Light... or do they actually provide a useful structure for people to worship within? Sound off in the comments below and join the discussion!

Friend of God

Who am I that You are mindful of me,
That You hear me when I call?
Is it true that You are thinking of me,
How You love me... it's amazing!

I am a friend of God! He calls me friend!

Back several years ago when my wife and I were in the worship choir at church, this song was the new thing, and we sang it quite frequently. It's a joyful, upbeat song; it's a fun one to sing. We sang it this past weekend at a marriage conference I went to with my wife, and it brought back some fun memories of those days. I remember we used to joke that the actual lyric is "...He calls me Fred" ...but we never sang it that way in church (not intentionally, at least!)

I also remember once our worship leader saying that she had actually received flak for the lyric. "Friend," the objection goes, is apparently too familiar of a term to use for God. When I heard her say that I immediately recognized that as a ridiculous objection which stems from a lack of actual knowledge of what the Bible says. What? That was what you were thinking? Let me show you from the Bible that God actually does call human beings His friend. I can think of an example from each testament right off the top of my head.

Old Testament: Abraham

    But you, Israel, my servant,
        Jacob, whom I have chosen,
        the offspring of Abraham, my friend... -Isaiah 41:8 ESV

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 2 Chronicles 20:7 ESV

Obviously it was common knowledge back then that God said Abraham was His friend. It should be common knowledge to Christians now, because there is also a New Testament verse that says so (probably the inspiration, along with Psalm 8:4, for the song):

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. -James 2:22-23 ESV

Bonus Old Testament friend of God's: Moses. "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent." -Exodus 33:11 ESV

But, weren't Abraham and Moses special cases? Surely not just ANYBODY can be a "friend of God," right? Just those special people. Is that what you think? Well, let me remind you of:

New Testament: Disciples

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." -John 15:12-15 ESV

In His farewell speech to His disciples, Jesus very specifically told them that they were His friends. Not His "servants," He told them, but His "friends." The disciples were far from special; they were a bunch of miscellaneous fishermen and other laypeople that Jesus had gathered around Him. And it's pretty likely that you believe, as I do, that Jesus' discourse here was intended not only for those present, but for all of us disciples of Christ which were to come (apparently the Apostle John felt the same way, or else he probably wouldn't have recorded it in such length). If you read through the rest of the discourse, you will find things that Christians have applied to themselves throughout the centuries. The gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise of Heaven. Being branches of the True Vine. Hatred of the World for Christians. All of these things we have applied to ourselves through the years; why not the simple friendship of God?

Happy Anniversary!

Quick, wish me and my wife a happy anniversary! My two kids, too. It's not our wedding anniversary, though, or even the anniversary of our first date as a couple. But two years ago today was our first date, in a sense... our first date with the church we've been part of ever since, The Bridge in Bixby, Oklahoma. You can read what I blogged back then about the experience here... we're in a beautiful new sanctuary now, and the children's ministry is quite different since then (for one thing, the kids don't come into the adult song service any more), but we still love it. It's the place for us to be!

This past weekend someone asked me why we had left our old church (which they still attend). They weren't being defensive or accusatury; just looking for information. What I told them there I'm not going to say here, any more than I did back when we originally left, because I still have immense respect for that church, and love for our friends who still attend there, and I would never want to be perceived as talking that church down. You could find some clues, though, in this post I wrote back then about what we were looking for in a new church, and what we ultimately found at The Bridge. As I read back over that post, I'm actually a little bit amazed that, in the two years we've been there, The Bridge has met all of those expectations in one way or another. There's not a paragraph in that post that I can say, nope, The Bridge isn't like that. It's like all of them. Maybe not in every tiny detail in every case, but in most of the details and certainly in all of the larger brush strokes. It seems like what we had on our hearts was what God ultimately brought us to... or, what God knew He was going to bring us to was what He laid on our hearts. Does it really matter which one it was? We found a place where we are happy and fulfilled, and that's an amazing feeling.

One of my favorite things about The Bridge is something that I think many people wouldn't think to put on their "important things" list if they were looking for a new church, but to me it is of central importance, and I think part of what we like about The Bridge is that it's clearly part of Pastor Orlando's priorities too. Once upon a time in history, people could not read. Also, there were no televisions and no CD players. There were no cassette players and there were no radios. The only way that people could learn about God was by personally hearing the Word recited out loud, and maybe expounded upon. I imagine that's the way it was in Bible days, and throughout much of history afterward, up to the time that sound recording was invented. But now, for someone who wants to know about the Bible, not only are there literally hundreds of Bible translations in English, but they are available at Bible bookstores, mainstream bookstores, the grocery store book aisle, your favorite Wal-Mart or Target, and for free in the drawer next to the bed in your hotel room. Online, site after site has the Bible available for free for searching and reading, often in many translations (sometimes so many it could make your head swim). Often, these Bible study sites will not only have the Bible text itself, but multiple study helps such as commentaries, Bible dictionaries, Greek/Hebrew lexicons, sermons, maps... whole Pastor's Office Bookshelf-loads of information. Even if you don't read, you might be able to figure out how to access the audio versions of the Bible on those sites. These days, if you fail to know what the Bible says, it's not because nobody was there to read it out loud to you. It's easily available.

You don't need a preacher to stand up in front of you and expound on the Scriptures, either. In addition to those online sites full of information, Christian bookstores across the country, and powerful Bible study software applications, there are thousands upon thousands of hours of television programming every day in which pastors and other ministers share their messages. So not only do you not have to have the Bible read to you, you do not even have to go to a church to hear a good message about the Bible. In fact, there's a pretty good chance these days that even your own pastor can be seen on TV or heard on the radio; I listen to a few-weeks-old message from my church's Sunday morning service on the radio every Sunday when I'm getting ready for church. You don't need to hear a sermon from a guy standing in front of you at all; there's a guy on TV who will happily provide a similar experience to you while you sit comfortably on your couch.

Decades ago, contemporary-style worship music was hard to come by. If you wanted to break away from hymns and sing something a little more modern in style, you were probably going to have to learn the song at church and sing it yourself. These days, Christian radio is filled with pop songs that are not only religious in theme, but that are actually worship songs. Often, the song hits the radio, and then later becomes a staple of church worship! And even if you don't have Christian radio where you live, you can buy a CD of Hillsong or Chris Tomlin or any number of other artists, and you've got a worship experience happening in your living room or car or earbuds that contains authentic worship music, probably performed and produced far better than your local church is able to do with volunteer musicians and production staff. You don't really need a church to fill your need for worship music, either.

I don't want to seem to be speaking out against pastors or their messages, reading the Word out loud, participating in a real live worship song service, or any other part of the Church experience. But I do want to highlight one thing that you cannot get from sitting on the sofa at home. What you can't do at home is build relationships with other believers. We need relationships with other believers in order to stay strong and live the life that Christ is calling us to. And to be honest, when you have a social, church-family bond with the people around you, all of those other things - the singing, the message, even things like giving in the offering - all of those things take on added significance, added importance. Being in a worship service with other believers is an amazing experience... being in a worship service with church family is even more amazing. It can make even a mistake from one of the people on stage turn into a worshipful experience when you know the person, know their heart. I love it when I'm in church and I catch sight of someone I know, maybe someone who has struggled with something in life or someone who is still struggling, and I see them worshiping with all of their heart. It makes me want to worship God with all of my heart, too. Their gratitude and love for the Lord reminds me that I've got a lot to be grateful and loving for, as well. Iron sharpening iron, so to speak.

I want to celebrate the two-year anniversary of us joining ourselves to The Bridge church. We love the people; we love and feel cared about by and appreciated by pastors and staff; our children learn about the Word; it's a fabulous place to be. If you're in the Tulsa/Bixby area and your heart is telling you it's time for a change, come on out and see what's happening. We'd love for you to become part of our little corner of the family of God!

De-fluffed Worship, and the Music of the Spheres

Things that crossed my mind during worship at church last night:photo © 2009 Dhilung Kirat | more info (via: Wylio)

In my fear I cried to the Lord,
And he answered me by setting me free

My wife and I were talking a few nights ago about fluffy Christian music - the ever-popular "Jesus is my girlfriend" music. I like a song with some guts to it... a song that says that when I'm struggling to get my head above the surface, God will do something other than promise me a nice hug when I get back into the boat. This song, based on Psalm 118, is a song with something to it. It's strong; it's active. It says that God's willing to DO something for me when I'm desperate. Awesome.

You dance over me while I am unaware
You sing all around but I never hear the sound
Lord I'm amazed by You

Recently I was reading about "the music of the spheres," which is a medieval concept that the heavenly bodies (planets, stars, sun, moon, etc.) are constantly producing a music that we do not hear because it is happening all the time and we are used to it, like someone who lives next to the train tracks might not even notice the trains any more, or like an inhabitant of a large city might not notice the constant traffic noise any more. C. S. Lewis equated this "music" to the presence of God; we can't get "into" or "out of" the presence of God because God is omnipresent... He is everywhere at once. He's right where I am, and He's right where you are. When we think we are "getting into God's presence," actually all we are doing is allowing ourselves to become aware of His presence which is already there. It's a useful, maybe even critically important concept to understand, and it was surprising to me tonight to discover it right there in the first verse of a Lincoln Brewster song. I wonder if he reads C. S. Lewis? :)

Fire, Light, and God's Way

photo © 2007 Jalal HB | more info (via: Wylio)

Into marvelous light I'm running out of darkness, out of shame
By the cross You are the Truth, You are the Life, You are the Way
(from "Marvelous Light")

This is my prayer in the fire, in weakness or trial or pain:
There is a faith proved of more worth than gold, so refine me, Lord, through the flame
(from "Desert Song")

Tonight during worship we sang several songs (including those quoted above) that described God in terms of "light" and "fire." That's one of my favorite images of God; not only does He illuminate and bring clarity, but He also burns up the bad stuff and purifies us until there's nothing but good stuff left (or, at least we approach that goal more and more as we let Him refine us and root out the messy parts of our lives and personalities). Being purified is usually an uncomfortable process, but when it's over, the result is something much better than what existed before!

My pastor briefly mentioned during worship that we should praise God for answers to prayer even before we see them... the easy example of this is Jericho, where the people shouted victory before the walls fell down. And Pastor said that this way of thinking is totally counter to our way of thinking as human beings, which is true, but it got me thinking: if human beings have one way of seeing something, and God has another way, and they are opposite, which one is the valid way? God's way, of course! God's way is: (1) we ask, (2) we believe His statement that when we ask we will receive, and (3) we begin to celebrate the answer even though it's not here yet. It's like getting word that your Christmas present is on the way by mail. You know you're going to get what you wanted, so why not rejoice? Instead, our "natural" impulse is to wait until we have the answer in our hands before we rejoice. It's like Grandma telling you that that Christmas present is in the mail, and you choosing to be skeptical about whether she is telling you the truth or not. Looked at it that way, which is the truly "natural" attitude to have: the "human being" way, or the "God" way?

Maybe the reason we don't rejoice is because we think that we may not be asking within the parameters of God's will. To solve that problem, we have to get God's Word into our hearts. I'll be posting a short series about the Bible soon; it's so critical to living the life God wants for us that we dig into God's Word! If you don't know if what you're praying is God's will or not, check the Book (which is MUCH easier to do if you already have a good grasp of what it says in there!) and get sure. Then pray according to the Will of God, and REJOICE!

Christmas Songwriting

This morning we visited another church (we're not leaving our church; my wife's brother was singing at his church so we went to hear!) and I really enjoyed the selection of Christmas carols we sang. There were a number of songs that are traditional, but not on the "I've sung this so many times I'm on auto-pilot" list. There was one song I wasn't familiar with, though, and I was disappointed with the song itself. Almost every rhyme in the song was an awful Christian Christmas song cliche:

earth/birth
life/sacrifice
love/son
name/praise

The music of the song was very stirring, and the themes in the lyrics were terrific, but the songwriting was less than eloquent. I mean, if your craft as an artist isn't any better developed than to plagiarize a rhyme from "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" (but in a much less eloquent way) then the right place for you is in your songwriting room, doing a rewrite. There's more to good songwriting that throwing in all the right buzzwords. I hope I'm not sounding grouchy or snarky, and there are probably lots of people who think that song is the best song ever, but the copyright date on the slide was mid-2000s so it's fairly recent, and my prediction is that it will not stand the test of time. It just didn't particularly say anything that hadn't been said better before.

Christian artists should bring their very best to God. If the song is nothing but a rather weak copy of other songs, then it's not good enough to bring before the King of Kings. Let's bring Jesus Christ only the very best.

Your Name, Making Kids' Lives Harder, and the Church Says Yes

photo © 2008 David Hopkins | more info (via: Wylio)This morning we sang a Paul Baloche song in church that goes "As morning dawns and evening fades, You inspire songs of praise that rise from earth to touch Your heart and glorify Your Name." I think the imagery of the song rising up from Earth to Heaven is beautiful, but this morning it made me think about how God causes all kinds of things to rise from the Earth toward Heaven. Trees, plants, animals... and His Son from the grave and us with Him. It struck me that God's will always tends toward things rising up from Earth and moving toward Him. Maybe that's part of the reason that many Christians like to stretch out their arms and hands toward Heaven when they sing worship!

After the music portion of the service, we had what we call "baby dedications." Basically those are just a time for new parents (or even not quite as new parents... one of the children we prayed over today is in the toddler class!) to kind of present their children to the church, pray for a safe and Godly upbringing for them, that sort of thing. For some reason I started thinking about my own two kids and how sometimes I'm pretty sure they think my wife and I get great mirth and joy from making their lives miserable. That is of course not the truth of the situation, but I was a kid once... I remember feeling that way sometimes! I realized today, though, that my job as a parent is to make my kids' lives harder... if they are not doing the right thing. My job is to make sin as difficult and unpleasant as I can, but when they are doing the right thing, my job is to grease the rails for them and empower them to succeed. I never thought of myself as a standing-in-the-way kind of parent, but if I'm standing in the way of my kids getting hurt or messing up their lives, I'll stand in the way of a speeding train if I have to!

Later in the service our associate pastor was talking about some of the things we are doing as a church to help needy people in the community, and I was thinking about how I usually feel sort of disconnected from those kinds of church ministries. After all, nobody asked me if we should help that person pay his rent or give him groceries or whatever. But then I realized that just because I don't make the actual decision to help that particular individual person, it doesn't mean I'm not a part of the decision... because if someone had asked me my opinion about it, I'm fairly certain I would have said "yes." In fact, I think it's safe to say, based on what I know about the people in my church (and I've spent time visiting with quite a lot of them), that we would as a body say "yes" if we were asked whether we should help someone who needed our help. When there's unity in a church body, the pastor knows that when he says "yes," the church says "yes." Come to think of it, the reason the pastor says "yes" and the reason the church says "yes" is because when someone calls out to Christ Jesus for help, His answer is "always yes" — within constraints of the church's budget, helping hurting people is always a top priority. That's how I feel, I know that's how my fellow church members feel, and I know it's how my pastor and his staff and board feel... so if Jesus says "yes" and leadership says "yes," and the church is of one mind with leadership, then the church also says "yes!"

You Are Good

photo © 2005 Christian Frausto Bernal | more info(via: Wylio)Today in church we sang a song which contains the lyric "You are good, You are good, You are good, and Your mercy is forever." Which, of course, came directly from the Scriptures, but as we sang, my mind suddenly and rapidly went through a series of thoughts:

• Yep, God is good.
• And, God wants the best for us.
• Then why does God sometimes call us to dangerous situations? (Say, to live in dangerous conditions in a foreign country in order to spread the Gospel.)
• Or why does God sometimes call us to do things that we don't want to do? (Say, to teach Sunday School when we are scared of public speaking.)
• Because God knows that we will be the most fulfilled when we are living within His will.
• So why doesn't God just change His will so that we can only have to do things that are comfortable or safe?
• Because it proves to the world and to demonic powers that we are willing to follow Him, whatever the cost.
• So you're telling me that God gets an ego boost out of it?
• How does THAT show that God is good?

I have a resolution for this train of thought, but you know what? I'm not going to put it here. If those questions rattle your cage and/or rock your Theology, that might mean that you need to spend some time alone with God, because maybe you don't understand Him as well as you will if you ask Him these questions yourself. I think we sometimes don't spend as much time questioning our own assumptions about God as we should. I will say this: God is good. The presence of evil doesn't change that. You take it from there.

We had some guests today who led a worship song: "How He Loves" written by John Mark McMillan. Inexplicably to me, they sang one of the "altered" versions of the "sloppy wet kiss" line, making it both less sloppy and less wet than it originally was. I'm actually a little surprised that the line bothers people as much as it apparently does; the songwriter actually even blogged about the controversy personally. I can think of songs that, to my way of thinking, are a lot worse offenders than that one; I actually like that line because sometimes my mind starts to wander at about that part of a song (late in the 2nd verse) and the sloppiness and wetness of that line always brings me back in.

Anyway, my point wasn't to argue about that line... my point was to mention a Scripture that it brings to mind:

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
    and righteousness looks down from the sky.
Yes, the LORD will give what is good,
    and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him
    and make his footsteps a way.

 (Psalm 85:10-13 ESV)

When we on Earth are faithful to God, and that intersects with His righteousness, good things begin to happen. I think that Psalm is so beautiful in its depiction of God's love for us. Just like the song, as a matter of fact. I don't know if there was conscious inspiration there, but it certainly looks like it to me.

And hey, there's the goodness of God popping up again. Something to think about.