"Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask where have I gone wrong? Then a voice says to me - This is going to take more than one night... In the Book of life, the answers aren't in the back."...Charlie Brown
Monday, April 29, 2013
"Illusions......................................."
The road just outside my front door, early this morning, bore witness to at least some rainfall over night; and then, when I left church a little after ten, the sky was smeared with a grey paste mixed with an all-day off-and-on drizzle. In spite of all that, driving out to the first service I was blessed in experiencing a few minutes of a cloud-free, bright sunshiny existence. It was like the world around me was just waking up for another face-to-face encounter with the source of life. My mind was on Him, turning over questions, dealing with the veil around all of us, the mystery of Christ “in” me, me still a mess in many ways; when, halfway up the hill that takes me from river level to higher ground, something connected in my “belly”. There was no small inner voice, no tongues, just a touch of His presence in the depths of this old man; and, with a tear in my eye, my spirit offered thanks…. During worship a bit later, the choir would lead the congregation in several rounds of a popular contemporary chorus that declares how God “surrounds” us in our walk “everywhere that we go”. Leaning toward my niece sitting there beside me, I whispered in her ear and asked if she believed it possible to sing, albeit in ignorance, a lie. The lyrics sound good. The melody is catchy enough to draw us into it. There’s little truth, however, to the claim that a believer’s journey is encased in a Holy Ghost bubble. Divinity is in the well. While it may be that nature and events can speak to us of His reality, it is not until a man is “born-again” that he can begin to “see” or “enter into” the kingdom. Semantics? Possibly. It’s just too easy in our humanity, though, to build an image, a theology, out of words and then fail to return to the oasis, content with the god we hold in our heads…….
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Jim, I like the way you paint with words. I always seem to have such a visual experience here somehow...
ReplyDeleteAs for lyrics, I find that, more and more, I am tired of hearing clichés constantly regurgitated and recycled in many music genres. There are few radio stations that I can listen to for very long. Long ago, I stopped listening to the local christian station because of cute-sie catch phrases.
I listen to nothing regularly, Mich, follow no celebrities and chase no singer. I like the slower worship tunes, but admit my age probably has a bit to do with that. All of that, however, doesn't mean now and then a certain song doesn't "hook me in my belly", the words and the vocalist connecting me with Him...
DeleteI heard an evangelist say once that Christian don't believe in lying but some of them go to church and sing lies every Sunday. It made me stop and think about the words I sing...
ReplyDeleteI don't wish to sound as if I call others a liar just because the lyrics they sing come up short on my own version of "truth", Annie. I do, however, think there is much, especially in this contemporary genre today, that certainly could use an examining in just what is being put forth....
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