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!

The Word Go project

Several years ago I started to notice something about myself. I enjoyed my pastor's message on Sunday morning, but often by Sunday evening I had forgotten most of what he said! I found this upsetting. I didn't want to lose all of the great information I was hearing from my pastor on Sundays! I started listening to the recordings of past services in my church's podcast, and I started taking notes of the things that lit up inside of me when Pastor said them. I wanted to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to me in my heart, and I write down the things that seemed important to me, important for my life.

The experience has been a great success for me! I usually come home with only three or four notes from the service, but I put them on my bedside table and review them throughout the week, trying to really take hold of what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to me. But I wondered if there might be an even better way to help others absorb the truths of the Word of God throughout the week!

Memorization is something that I have been interested in ever since the summer during my college years that I spent selling books door-to-door. They told each of us college students to memorize a whole script, many many pages, of what to say when the door opened. It's a terrific sales tool, and the bonus was that it taught me how to really commit things to memory! Putting something into your long-term memory typically doesn't just happen to you - it is something that has to be deliberately done. But there's one exception: can you think of a TV commercial jingle that you heard decades ago, but you can still sing it as though you just heard it five minutes ago? Did you grow up, as I did, in the Schoolhouse Rock generation who can still sing "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction"? We know those things by memory because of one thing: repetition.

I started to wonder if there was a way to make it easy for people to repeat the same information from the Bible over and over in the course of a couple of weeks, and really absorb that information from the Word of God. I knew it was going to take some music, but that was fine by me because I've been writing music for my whole life! As I thought it through, and as I listened for inspiration from the Lord, I came up with this idea: I would write a devotional, containing plenty of Scripture verses and very little editorializing, with three main points. For each of those points, I would write a song covering the same material. I might even record different versions of that song in different genres. The idea is to give people as many options for listening to the same material as possible so it doesn't get boring, doesn't get old, and it is easy to repeat over and over.

About six months ago I wrote my first version of the script. I recorded it and showed it to a couple of people, and one of my pastors gave me some terrific feedback. "This is like a college course!" he said. "This is so much information to absorb! Maybe cut it down a little?" That was great advice - my first version was VERY dense with information! I cut it down about half, And also slowed down the pace of my speech, and the result was SO much better. Then I took my three points and wrote three songs. Over the course of the next six months, I learned so much about instrumental and vocal recording and production techniques! There sure is a lot to know! In the end, I came up with three songs that I feel really good about.

And that brings us to today! Today, I am thrilled to announce that The Word Go Project is live! You can experience it yourself at WordGoProject.com. When you go to that site, preferably on a mobile device, you'll find a big old play button. You can listen the material couple of different ways, or you can even read the speech in text form, but the main thing is to hit the play button and absorb the message from the Word of God. The message that was chosen for this first episode is Love. How's that for an obvious, but really good choice? So visit WordGoProject.com, find out what this episode has to say about love, and soak it in! I hope you enjoy, and I hope it changes your life!

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!

Houseiversary

Four years.

It had been four long years since we moved to Bixby, Oklahoma. Don't get me wrong - we love Bixby. It's just that when we moved out of our house in east Tulsa and into an apartment in Bixby, we expected to live there for four months while we sold our old house and built the new one we would live in. But then our house in East Tulsa didn't sell, and to support that mortgage while it was on the market we wound up retracting our deposit on the new house build, and then we wound up having to turn our old house into a rental property. So we were stuck in an apartment which was very nice, but also very cramped for our family of four. With no money left to build our new house.

For four years.

Our lease was coming up for renewal, and we really felt like it might be time to make a move. It was either get out of the apartment, sign another year lease, or pay a huge premium to go month to month. One day my wife and I had dropped our little girl off at a friend's house for a birthday party, and with nothing else to do for an hour or so until picking her back up, my wife said "Drive down there." Apparently she had seen a sign for a little neighborhood that was going up... so we drove down to take a look.

There were only a handful of houses there, but right near the front of the new neighborhood there were three model houses available to look at. We peeked into each one in turn, and had a bit of a Three Bears experience... the first one wasn't quite what we wanted, and neither was the second one, but the third one was Just Right. The realtor told us that since it was close to the end of the month, it might be to our advantage to wait to shop for financing until after the first of the next month, so we told her we would get back with her then.

But we couldn't get away from being interested in that house! After the first of the month we went back over, and talked to the realtor - who was actually a different woman this time. She told us that the house was still available, but there was another potential interested party - if we had our minds made up, it would be to our advantage to put down our earnest money and lock it down for ourselves. We needed to run back to our apartment to get the checkbook, but she said she would be there when we got back.

Now, it so happens that that day was my wife's birthday, and to celebrate we had bought tickets to hear Jonny Lang play in concert that evening. Jonny is an amazingly talented blues guitarist who is also a man of faith, and his faith in God sometimes turns up in his music. To get pumped for the concert that evening, we had been listening to his Live at the Ryman album all morning - it was playing on the way back to our apartment.

When we got to the parking lot at the complex, something occurred to me. "We haven't actually prayed about this yet," I said to my wife. "Would you like to pray?" She said yes, and right there in the car she began to pray for guidance and wisdom.

I was listening and agreeing with her in prayer, but as it turned out I didn't hear much of what she said... because the Holy Spirit was speaking to me right through my stereo speakers! Right when my wife started praying, Jonny Lang got to a part of his song "Red Light" where he was half-speaking, half-singing to his audience about trusting God. "It's gonna be all right," he sang. "It's gonna be all right. Everything's gonna be all right."

Over and over Jonny sang "Everything's gonna be all right," and my heart said to me that it wasn't an accident that that part of the song happened to play right when we were seeking God's wisdom on this decision. I'm not someone who sees "sign from God" in every coincidence, but I'm also not too dense to recognize the Holy Spirit using something to encourage me.

There were a lot of things that day that came together for us. We happened to have enough spare money available to us right then to put down the earnest money - an unusual situation for us. We got there that day before this hypothetical other buyer - I realize that he may or may not have truly existed (I know how high-pressure sales work), but a man did turn up as we were working on the paperwork and he did want to look at houses. The perfect house for our family was already built and waiting for us just when we needed to move out of the apartment; no waiting for a 4-month build.

And my wife got the most lavish birthday present of her life so far: a new house!

We've never regretted what happened then. Today is the one year anniversary of the day we moved in, and we couldn't be happier! (Even our dog is more relaxed than he was in the apartment!) The neighborhood is nestled between some areas of farmland - the photo at the top of this blog post is a snapshot I took one morning within walking distance from where we live.

Four years.

Sometimes God's blessings take a bit of time to arrive (review this if you need additional information). But when they do arrive, they are amazing!

Christmas, Day 2

What do you mean, "Christmas is over for the year"? Of COURSE Christmas isn't over. Yesterday was just the beginning! Don't you know there are twelve days of Christmas?

No, seriously. There are twelve days of Christmas. In Church tradition, December 25th is only the first day of Christmas, the celebration of the day when the child Jesus was born. In fact, the rest of December isn't "Christmas" at all; everything leading up to December 25 is called "Advent", which is where the idea for your chocolate "Advent Calendar" came from. So even if you're not a high-church kind of guy or girl, you can at least thank the Church for giving you an excuse to spend the entire month of December eating chocolate!

So today, December 26, is actually the second day of Christmas. But in lieu of giving and receiving gifts of turtledoves today, the Church calendar asks you to think about Christianity's first recorded martyr, St. Stephen. Today is St. Stephen's Day, and you can find a little information about it here at Wikipedia, if you are so inclined. Switch gears from the seasonal song you've had going on in your head the whole time you've been reading this post so far, and think about the first line of "Good King Wenceslas". Now you know what day the good king is supposed to have looked out on the deep, crisp, even snow and seen a poor man who needed his help.

In our family, we happen to have come up with our own little tradition for the day after all of the ruckus and presents and hubbub... many years we take December 26 as a day to bake a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake and celebrate just a little bit longer. Not only is it a nice way to sort of ramp down from the adrenaline rush that is Christmas in the United States of America, but it's a small way to once again remind ourselves of what we as Christians are supposed to be celebrating. I'm sure there are lots of Christian families out there who have had the same idea and who have the same tradition.

It's not just December 26th that has a special meaning, though. Every day of the twelve actually has a significance in Church liturgy - I've never been part of a denomination that celebrated them, so I've only heard about and read about them. But one that has stuck for me occurs on the day after the twelfth day of Christmas. That holiday is called Epiphany, and it is the celebration of the day when the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem (I blogged about it previously here). Two years ago I started a tradition in my family (and sprung it on my wife as a surprise that first year!) that we would get a small gift for each family member and give it to them on Epiphany, the day the Magi gave gifts to Jesus. This gift is never a video game or toy, though... this gift has to be different. This gift is carefully selected as something that will give that family member a way to focus on Jesus for the entire coming year. In that way, it is an intensely personal gift. It can't be the same thing for each family member; it has to be something selected specifically for their age, gender, and level of understanding of the things of God.

The first year I did this I did not tell my wife what I was doing until I had already done it... it was quite a surprise for everyone, but I thought it was a pretty wonderful experience. The next year she knew about it ahead of time, but I still pretty much handled it myself rather than truly bringing her into the situation (although I've always intended to). This year we've already talked about it briefly; I've got some of the gifts already, but there's more to do. But she'll be selecting the remaining gifts with me this time.

For me, it has been worth the effort every year so far. I hope my gifts have had the intended effect on my family members, but even if they haven't, the act of working so hard to come up with something for each of them to direct them to Jesus has had a profound effect on me. I look forward to it every year. I would definitely encourage any of you to spring the same surprise on someone on January 6 - whether it be a family member, a brother or sister in Christ, or maybe even just someone you know who could use a little encouragement. Jesus said that something done for "the least of these" who need a helping hand is done to Him... let's be wise enough to follow the example of the Wise Men, who brought gifts to Jesus, and truly bring Him our gifts this Epiphany!

---

Music by David Crowder Band to celebrate these "Bonus Days" of Christmas we Christians get to:

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!

In Your Eyes

in your eyes
the light, the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes

from "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel

What do you suppose Peter Gabriel meant by equating the gaze of the one you love to a church doorway? That doesn't seem nearly as romantic as something like "limpid pools," or stars, or the ocean or whatever. I was thinking about it this morning, and I realized that the lyric means that in the eyes of his lover, he can see something very special and wonderful, the thing he had been looking for all along, something that is so special that it almost seems holy. And that pretty accurately describes what you see when you look into the eyes of someone who loves you. There is something special there that is so pure that it almost seems holy.

And that's no mistake!

Throughout the Bible, God describes His chosen people as His bride. Sometimes His bride is spotless and beautiful, and sometimes His bride has been "unfaithful," chasing after other things instead of pursuing our relationship with Him, but we are always His bride. When we come to Him, he washes us and makes us holy. What He sees when He looks into the eyes of His bride is His holiness. And when God created romantic human love and marriage, He created it to mirror the relationship between Him and His bride, the Church.

So when you look into the eyes of your loved one this Valentine's Day, enjoy the love they have for you, but also know that the love they have for you is a reflection for the love God has for you!

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. -Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened... -Ephesians 1:17-18a NIV

I found it hard to believe
Someone like You cared for me,
You put this love in my heart!

I tried but could not refuse,
You gave me no time to lose.
You put this love in my heart!

from "You Put This Love In My Heart" by Keith Green

Ambition

Nobody knew His secret ambition.

Nobody knew His claim to fame.

...Nobody knew His secret ambition was to give His life away!

He is risen!

He is risen INDEED!

HAPPY EASTER!

Crucified!

One of my favorite Easter songs of all time! It's based in part on Galatians 2:20-21:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Lyrics are below, since the "Cookie Monster" Jamaican rap parts are a little tricky to make out. Enjoy! (Oh... and it's okay to DANCE!)



Crucified
by Christafari
as recorded on their album Soul Fire
 
He died for me so I could live for Him.
He gave His life for me so I could give mine to Him.
He died for me so I could live for Him.
He became like me so I could become like Him!

And so me cry: and so Lord Jesus He died, the same way I have been crucified. Take up your cross and follow Him as He said to His children "Live in no more sin."

Everyone say! And so Lord Jesus He died, the same way I have been crucified. Take up your cross and follow Him as He said to His children "Live in no more sin."

It's by faith through which you've been saved, and according to the mercy the Father did give. Just like the faith of one mustard seed, the smallest in size, but becomes the biggest weed.

It's by faith through His grace that put me in this place of righteousness that you cannot erase. So I've been justified, and-a sanctified, I am glorified with the Spirit inside. So do not bother filling up yourself with pride; as a humble lion you must be crucified.


He died for me so I could live for Him.
He gave His life for me so I could give mine to Him.
He died for me so I could live for Him.
He became like me so I could become like Him!

He was born so He could die, died so we might live.
We lift His name on high, pure love that we give.

Watch-a!

And so Lord Jesus He died, the same way I have been crucified. Take up your cross and follow Him as He said to His children "Live in no more sin."
Everyone say! And so Lord Jesus He died, the same way I have been crucified. Take up your cross and follow Him as He said to His children "Live in no more sin."

Watch this!

I've been crucified with Christ for eternity, it's I that no longer live but Christ that lives in me. The life that I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of Yahweh. He who loves-a me and He gave Himself for me, I do not set aside the grace of God, can't you see? For if through the law righteousness could be, then Jesus Christ, He died for nothing.


He died for me so I could live for Him.
He gave His life for me so I could give mine to Him.
He died for me so I could live for Him.
He became like me so I could become like Him!

And so Lord Jesus He died, the same way I have been crucified. Take up your cross and follow Him as He said to His children "Live in no more sin."

So don't big up your music, don't big up your fame. You must come refuse it, don't big up your name. Don't big up your status don't big up your wealth, me cry don't big up anything just die to yourself.

You must first count up the cost, then you take up the cross... and follow Him.

Hallelujah! Amen. Amen. Amen, amen, amen.

I have redemption and propitiation, election and pure substitution, adoption and reconciliation, confession and regeneration, expiation, and joy, enough conviction, and strength over temptation, me have discipleship and fellowship, security for surety in this life (relationship) with God.

Amen!