Reflection?
Writing this from a bench on the beach. The last few weeks or even a month has been another rollercoaster.
I don’t even know what I’m going to write about, I’ll figure it out as I go.
First off, I’ve been wanting to get closer to God. Like I said, I started reading my morning devotions and I sometimes miss it, but I try. I’ve been getting into worship music, listening to it as I walk to work or at the bus when going to school.
It’s very weird because it’s… unprompted? One day I just felt like listening to worship music and I’ve been listening to it. One thing I realize about praising the lord with music is how I misread it all this time.
Whenever someone sings worship, I’d think it’s for a self-righteous purpose, or to reinforce their belief that they have earned God’s blessing because most of the lyrics are exclamations that we’ve been saved, or how ‘God will save us’ as if we’re commanding it. I was cynical enough to think that ‘people sing these songs to feel enough, to feel that they’ve earned God’s blessing,’ and oh boy how wrong I was.
In the song ‘More Than Able’ by Elevation Worship, it spins the story of faith differently. The line ‘Why do I talk myself out of seeing miracles?’ was hard. Instead of exclaiming one’s faith, it questions it. It questions if you even wholeheartedly believe in Jesus. It’s not the usual ‘I’ve been saved and I’m singing this to exclaim that I’m saved’ spiel that some worship songs throw out.
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The act of questioning one’s faith makes the song real. It’s not an exclamation that our faith is perfect. It’s the voice of a rational part of our mind that relies on context and proof against our belief in miracles.
This song changed my perspective. I used to think praises are self-assurance, but it’s not. It’s praise to God. Worship music are hymns about how graceful God is to save us, sinners, away from evil and to his embrace.
The line ‘Who am I to deny what the Lord can do?’ puts us in a lower position. Who are we to deny his actions in our lives? ‘Just let the Way Maker through’ implies having faith in Jesus and his plans, no matter how bleak it is in the moment. You cannot have faith and fear at the same time because fear is the absence of faith in uncertainty.
The song ‘Up To Something’ puts the singer in another vulnerable position. The song starts with the line ‘I heard Your voice And I followed Your leading. But now that I’m here, I’m not sure that You’re with me.’ Again, I love songs where it shows the hardships in faith because realistically, it is how we are. Our faith isn’t constantly strong, it’s tested. Some days we’re strong, other days we question God more than we lean on him.
Another line is ‘Not my will but yours be done, in the middle You’re still God. You know better than I do, I will put my trust in you,’ which is an exclamation of faith. It’s that faith that comes with having no options. It’s that ‘leave it up to the man upstairs’ moment, that is what a human’s faith is.
These new worship songs are fun to listen to, and fun to sing. For me, singing something as heavy as worship music should come from the heart, which is why I don’t like the worship music I heard before. I always think that I’m not enough for the Lord, or that my faith is not constant, so singing something about having constant faith is not my cup of tea.
But now I found some new music, and I find comfort knowing that He allowed me to discover this during this time of need.
Praise God.
