Longing For God's Song ... Zeph 3.17

Longing for God's Song ...

You know I am amazed by the power of music. Movies powerfully synchronize music with pictures to move an audience. Athletes can burst into tears when they hear their national anthem. Governments often try to control the music people hear. Moms can love their babies to sleep with a soothing melody. Plato in his ideal Republic argued that music was to be strictly controlled.

There are few things that are as capable of teleporting me through time and space to a distant memory or scene in my life as music. To this day when I hear "Lady in Red" I think of Lori and my high school prom. I will never forget "Pressure" by Billy Joel because it was the song on the radio as Pamella and I pulled into the parking lot of my first ministry interview in Saucer Creek, MS. "We Shall Overcome" helped define a movement. I recall when I was "politely" asked to "leave" a congregation in MS ... I listened to Pink Floyd through the night on the Natchez Trace Parkway and singing "Wish You Were Here" (video is on your right) because my family was not there. I was all alone ... It remains one of my favorites and it still speaks powerfully. I cannot hear "Hey Jude" without thinking of a little Talya traveling with me to Memphis and she loved that song and would play it over and over in the CD player. When I hear "I want to get away" by Lenny Kravitz I think of Rachael who loved that song immensely. And so it goes ...

Music speaks to our hearts in a way that words, logic and so-called reason cannot. I find that I am can be moved to tears through a song quickly because of the emotion it evokes. I find that my vision of God can become exalted and I am uplifted through song in a way that I am never in a sermon or even prayer.

God loves music too. I have been trying to hear his own singing in my life. That old Hebrew prophet, Zephaniah, claims that Yahweh sings over us. He sings songs of victory over us. He sings of his love and comfort for us. Perhaps I have had my radio to loud ... I am trying to have an "ear to hear" the melodious voice of our Abba. When I am alone and afraid, I say "daddy sing to me once again." I want to hear that one healing song.

"Yahweh your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quite you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing"
(Zephaniah 3.17)

Father ... help us to hear the song as we sleep tonight.

Bobby Valentine