Thanks for once again checking in. I want to apologize upfront on the front end because, my brain is a little weird at times and it will sometimes put things together that only makes sense to me, and I think that this is one of those ☺️☺️. Sometimes I date myself with some of the things that I say or make reference to. Sometimes it bothers me a little bit and other times I’m just like what the heck!☺️ OK, so I want to transport you guys back to the nineteen eighties and I’m not going to look this up, so it’s all from memory ,so it could be off just a little, but it gives you a chance to do a little research ☺️☺️. So, back in the eighties there was a collaboration of artists, the who’s who of pop music back in the day. They all came together to raise money for some charity, not sure which is was , it was a pretty popular thing to do back then. It possibly might have been for AIDS research, because it was ravaging so many parts of the world back then. Just look up ” Farm Aide”. It was headed up by Michael Jackson, and you had Elton, Stevie, Paul, George, Dionne, Lionel, Bruce and so many more and they came together under the banner of “We Are The World “, terrific song, not sure who’s album it landed on, but just an incredible display of talent and star power. I will tie this up for you near the end.
In the Bible, there is this verse in first Corinthians about when I was a child. It goes on about, I thought like a child, but there is a time to put away childish things. So, when I was a child I remember being taken to a little southern Baptist church in Norfolk, VA., that was home for me back then. (Mount Olive Baptist church). I have memories of sitting on really hard pews that would make your legs fall asleep from sitting so long. I remember the pastor up on the pool pit screaming at what seemed to be the top of his lungs. I remember him sweating like a pig, and he looked like he had just finished running a marathon ☺️☺️. I remember the ladies with those big church hats that you couldn’t see around or over. I remember them having those hand fans that they had just a moving back and forth, so that they didn’t look like they had just run a marathon ☺️☺️, usually unsuccessful ☺️☺️. Those little hand fans usually had a picture of Dr. King on it or some funeral home advertisement. Maybe one of the strangest practices was them passing an offering plate around and people use to” make change”. If you are unfamiliar with that, it’s when they would drop a five dollar bill in the plate, and then rummage through the plate looking for four dollars and fifty cent ☺️☺️, true story, no lie☺️☺️. So much for robbing God☺️☺️ . It just seemed like we were in church all day long, oh wait!, we were☺️☺️. There was Vacation Bible School, VBS, we really didn’t have summer camps back then like they do now. Ok, I’m going to try and describe this but I’m not really sure how. My mom would sing in the choir and she would park us by one of her Lady friends and her job was to keep us in line, if we got to fidgety, can’t be embarrassing the family . Anyhow, there is this thing they use to call ” being happy or getting happy “, and this is when someone is taken over by the holy spirit. It would scare the living crap out of me. This one lady,, Mrs. Walker, that right, I still remember her name ☺️☺️. Let’s just say when she was visited by the spirit, she was known for the occasional back hand, that’s right, she might catch me or one of my brothers once in a while, but we would always be on guard, because you could almost set your watch by her going off , but we were vigilant and on guard☺️☺️. Stevie Wonder wrote a song called ” Sir Duke” and one of the lines in the song was about taking your Sunday school money and spending it at the candy store and I was wondering how he knew?☺️☺️. Actually we did it before he wrote the song, so maybe he owes us royalties ☺️☺️. So there was preaching, nothing like the mild stuff now days, it was fire and brimstone ☺️☺️. There was the occasional dancing in the isles, but sorry to disappoint you, absolutely no snake handling or child sacrifices ☺️☺️. And then there was the music, and this is where I want to park for a bit today.
The music often struck me as strange and bizarre . There were those times when we had those straight up ” Negro Spirituals”. There was this one song that they use to sing when people were getting baptized and it was creepy to me, something about ” way or wade through the water”. It was slumber, sounding like it may have been more appropriate for a funeral ☺️. It’s almost impossible to talk about the music without talking about hymnals. I know some of you people won’t be able to believe this , but way before power point was ever thought of, they had these books with music written in it and they would tell everyone what page to turn to and we would all sing that song. Ok, this is the really crazy part , we would sing words that made absolutely no sense what so ever, no meaning, or reference point , well at least not for me, back then . I had always heard that a lot of the old hymns were actually set to tunes that they use to sing in bars and saloons and when I was a child , I would believe them. ☺️. The music to me back then was a complete mystery and so was the majority of the preaching.
Now days Christian music has evolved and it has branched out like crazy. We still have a lot of the traditional hymns, but the gospel music arena is nothing to be trifled with and for the last forty years or so, they have what falls under the contemporary or alternative banner . There were so many things that I missed as a kid just parking my butt in that pew . There was definitely resistance and that probably played a part in it. If You guys have been with me for a while then you know that I ran from the church and God for many long years. I will lacking* this to the fact that we don’t embrace the strange , weird, or the misunderstood, and when I was a child, much of it fell under those headings. This blog is called not the only one, and this is one of those places where I’m almost positive that I’m not by myself. The difference is, most of us don’t seek to find or to understand the words to the music or anything that has to do with God. We get to a point where we just check out and those masses and other worship services are a distant memory and we feel in the rear view mirror is where they should stay. ☺️When I use to be heavily involved in evangelism, part of the churches story is that it has done an absolute horrific job of keeping the main thing the main thing. The absolute most important and primary purpose and job of the church is often watered down, or drowned out by programs, or other activities that have very little to do with connecting people to God. I mean it’s just one explanation for people going through the motions, sitting in those very same hard pews and missing the point, week after week, sadly sometimes for years, or a life time . I’m not lambasting all pastors or the church as a whole, because people’s hearts have to be open and receptive…or fertile soil. A lot of churches do a great job, but churches are just like anything else in life whether we are talking about cops, teachers, doctors, or any other profession , there are bad ones mixed in with all of the rest , and making it difficult for the ones who try and get it right.
The majority of Christian music is filled with God’s word or things about His character and or His perspectives, which are usually completely different from ours , with major misunderstandings about who God is. I mean even some of the older hymns may reflect language closer to the old King James version of the Bible, which adds to it being unrelatable. We don’t go around talking about sea billows rolls ☺️☺️. Many things about God’s character and nature are strange and mysterious to us, like the animal sacrifices we read about in the old testament. However, there is much that is beautiful, majestic and just straight up poetic. As we embrace the parts that we know and understand , sometimes the other parts will become a little less strange and unfamiliar to us. I will say this, I think that we only get out of God what we are willing to invest in God, meaning if you put no time or effort in, then you will probably remain at the place where it makes very little sense to you. Again, when I was a child.! ☺️We grow up into adults, but often remain infants in our spirituality, or even worse , never are blessed with a spiritual understanding or appreciation of all that God desires for us.
Well, check this out and see if you can wrap your mind around this. Jesus had roughly a three year ministry here on earth, training some misfits that He would trust with His message of the good news, that the kingdom God is at hand and available to all people. We have a small snapshot of this in the four gospels. It is said that if every single thing that He had done in those three years, was recorded, there would be no place that could contain all that He said, did or accomplished. The point is, why wouldn’t there just be tons upon tons of music of all genres , just praising Him , the Father and the spirit of God. It’s absolutely no wonder that regardless of what kind of music you like and enjoy, that the main reference point for most is Love. And that is because God is Love. I don’t take offense that country music normally mixes something in about their dog or pick up truck☺️☺️. I will sometimes talk about brokenness and most of us are familiar with artists writing or creating out of their pain , and it comes through in all forms of art, be it songs ,writing, visual art forms, and anything else that we would consider art. One of the oldest and most beautiful hymns was penned out of pain , and it just has such a rich beauty to it and it was birth out of pain and loss. The hymn is ” IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL “. You might want to look this one up, it’s a little bit reminiscent of the beginning of the Job story .. A man by the name Horatio Spafford, penned this song after a series of misfortunate events , which left him completely devastated. I learned and observed sometime ago that when we are pressed and besieged that it will always bring us to a crossroads or some kind of juncture in life and we will only have two real choices. They are to lean into God and to trust Him with your trials and circumstances, or we will be angry and move away from God. We can try to dress it up and make it about something else, but that’s it just two pathways to choose from. We can ask God what it is that He wants us to learn and take from the situation, or we can blame God with an accusing tone, of how could You allow this to happen?
Horatio Spafford, lost what most would consider everything, business, home and children, and yet he clung to God, and at the end of the day, he said ” it is well with my soul “. Only an eternal perspective can allow you to say such a thing after such great losses. Now days we get so bent out of shape over loosing a pet or a job and possibly a relationship. We so rarely think about possibly those things may have been harmful to us in some way, or that God is closing a door, because He has something much better in store for you. As the Apostle Paul said, NO!!, I haven’t got it all figured out or obtained any semblance of righteousness on my own. It truly is about the relationship and trusting and taking it one day at a time and sometimes just a single step at a time, and still choosing to follow when it makes absolutely no sense what so ever. If you choose to research the song or the man, then the reference of ” sea billows roll ” will come into closer focus for you and if you don’t then you will choose to treat it like everything else about God and keep it and Him at a distance. Really a shame, while living in the area of Google, so much right at your fingertips ☺️☺️.
Let’s bring this train into the station.☺️☺️. I try hard not to endorse things or people, so I will not be helping you with your choice for the upcoming presidential election ☺️☺️. Every now and then , it’s hard not to share when something or someone leaves and impression on you or has impressed you in some way. So, I have discovered a new sister and her name is Tara Leigh Cobble and she heads up something known as the Bible Recap, and if you have encountered God’s word and found it difficult to understand or digest, then this may be a possible option for you . Her challenge to me is to get a deeper understanding of and connection to God, and changing my perspective on how I approach the word of God, as in how He works in the smallest of ways to reveal more of Himself to us. This brings me back to ” We Are The World “, I know strangely , and I did tell you that my brain put things together that sometimes only makes sense to me ☺️☺️. Back in the eighties, again an incredible outpouring of charity for a very worthy cause, and it probably accomplished great things, I’m not exactly sure of the results of that. These artist came together for a common cause, and it was to raise money and to save lives. As we part ways today, I want to contrast this with an old hymn that praises the One, who is the giver of all life and the sustainer of all things. He is the One who blessed all of those incredible artist with their gifts and abilities.
” HOW GREAT THOU ART” , again an incredible cast of artist. They are the who’s who of contemporary Christian music. They might not be as well known as the other list, but such formidable gifts again and voices that you would wonder if they reveled one of God’s archangel themselves. ☺️☺️. I love when people jazz up some of the old hymns, but then again, there is just such beauty with them being belted out with the original power for which it was intended in the first place. Don’t just sing the song, but let it weigh on you and take in the gravity of what is being expressed here. Think about all the wonders that His hands has made. Think about Him not sparing His son, to take away my sin, your sin, and the sin of every person who has ever lived. And that surely should be something that you could scarcely take in, especially if you are honest with yourself about who you are . Think about when you get to the end of your days and He comes to take you home. Any single line from this song , should be enough for you to just stand and shout, my God!! ” How Great Thou Art”
