Music

What is it about music that inspires a soul? What is it that makes me want to grab a pen and just start journaling to my soul when I listen to Derek Webb? Why is Garrett (Our worship leader) able to say in one lyric what I am unable to say in a week of prayer? Why can a Hymn move my soul to do things that no sermon would? How is a completely instrumental piece able to move my soul to God’s Throne room with no words?

I think music inspires and drives my soul because it always worships something. It could be U2 singing about heaven, or just a good “Killers” song that will motivate me to run one more half mile on the treadmill. Music seems to be created to worship. Whether it is love, sex, passion, or music itself, there is something behind it that it is worshiped. It could be “sexual healing” by Marvin Gaye, or “not to us” by Chris Tomlin; there is always an object being worshipped. In the very same way our lives are like that.

Just like a song cannot be sung without worshipping something, our lives cannot be lived with out worshipping something. My life, or my song, is often about me; it is often about the glory that I believe radiates off of me. But for the past few weeks through sin, failure, broken idols, and God’s Grace I have been able to look in the mirror and see that there is nothing radiating off of me, except the putrid smell of sin.

And the best part about seeing that you are worshipping something that smells like crap, is seeing that their is nothing worthy of worship except God alone. The reason why he is so worthy is not because he is so much better then everything, which he is, but rather the sheer fact that he is the only thing worth worshipping. Sex, Love, Passion, or Music, they are all broken in this world, and therefore not worth our worship, or our lives.
This quote from Richard Baxter on Worship, really calls me back to the center of it all.

“Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and truth; and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with seriousness and reverence, and not to be dallied with, or served with toys or lifeless lip-service; and that he is most holy, pure, and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped; and that he is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy.”

Thank God that he looks past my sin, and sees his son in my stead. Thank God that under this grace I am lead by his spirit. And in the words of the great and late Johnny Cash, "Lord you can have it all, My Empire of Dirt"