So here I am in Pierre, SD. I have just a few more days left before I head out. It’s been pretty good. Learned some stuff. I believe it’s been confirmed in me that my time in the Army is done. I like the people and the job, but I don’t like the job enough to stick around. I could change jobs, but to be honest it’s just too much of a hassle for something my heart isn’t fully in. So come this September, I will be done with my time in the Army. It’s been a great 10 years, and now my baby sister is joining the same unit that I will be in, so that will be cool, we will have a few months to serve together. The family and I are now left waiting to hear about a job, which we are both hoping for. If not then it’s back to the original plan of moving to Indiana I guess, but really I hope not.
There have been a few things lately that are really getting me to think about music, worship and the like. For a while now I have grown very tired of all the prom date songs we sing as “worship” in Church. A friend posted the idea last week that hes looking for songs that draw him closer to God and not just want to make out with him. That’s exactly it. We have lost the power of Christ in our faith and focused so much on the love and mushy stuff. Which isn’t wrong in and of itself, but rather if that’s all it is to us in our faith, that doesn’t even get close to doing Christ justice, much less God. Then I had a discussion with a good friend of mine about how music should not be what makes us happy or feel good, but rather what are we giving to God. And he’s absolutely right. The dilemma is really where are hearts are at as we worship? I can worship with hymns, chats, contemporary or just about anything. However for sustainable growth to happen in our faith, there is an element to who we are and how we’re wired.
I had a college professor say once that to be truly academic and really study, you need to find a quiet place with zero distraction. Ok, I get his point, and that works for him, however if I go rogue with my homework, I cannot focus! I can’t! It’s too quiet. So while that idea works great for him, it doesn’t for me. It is, I believe, the same idea with music. God has wired us all differently and within us we have a way to draw close to Him. Is it through music? Art? Dance? Reading? Nature? I don’t know. But I know that I can worship with any type of music, but after a while I do not feel that I give all that I have to Christ as I sing or whatever. My friends idea was that, at first he hated XYZ, but the more he did it the more it grew on him and he started to go deeper with God through it. Great, good for him. I think that for centuries the Church has forced and told people they MUST do/act/sing/be a certain way to live holy lives. It causes so much hurt, frustration and mostly indifference to their faith that they no longer truly engage with the relationship with God.
That’s why I think that as of late, I have grown increasingly frustrated with the music aspect of Church. It’s way too focused on “dating” God and enjoying the honeymoon aspect of God that we never start to be the “bride of Christ”. We just want to enjoy the wedding day for the rest of our faith journey. Well anyone that has been married for more than a week will tell you that there are going to be tough times, and it’s really through those times that your relationship has grown the most. You come out at the end of it more in love with your spouse and more willing to sacrifice for them. And I believe that’s why Christ uses the marital relationship in reference to our relationship with Him. It has to go through the fire of hurt, and pain. The joys and peaks as well. Until then, how can we ever truly love our spouse? And in this case, love and understand God?
So I will continue, the best I can to focus on music that shows God’s power in my life, in nature and in just the essence of who He is. Some people look at these periods of life as plateaus or maybe God isn’t around, I view it as a time of growth. Where is God? He is here, and He’s asking me questions, or pushing me to a different place. He hasn’t left, so that’s not where, but where or rather what is God trying to work out in me? Am I listening? I hope so.
