God

Music Monday 01.26.15

“Sinking Deep” Hillsong Young and Free

Over MLK Day weekend, I took my middle school youth on a ski retreat up to Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. It’s hosted by the UMC camp and conference center up there with a guest speaker, a worship band, games, and, of course, skiing. We closed each day with a corporate worship service for the entire group. The guest band leading worship for the weekend ended the service every night with this song.

When I heard it the first night, I thought it might an original song of theirs as I had never heard it before and I consider myself reasonably knowledgable about worship music. I did a little research care of Google and Spotify and found out that it was actually written and recorded by Hillsong Young and Free a little over a year ago.

I was enamored with the song. I couldn’t stop playing it. I looped it over and over taking in every word and every note. I dwelled on the lyrics.

“Sinking deep in mercy’s seas”

“Your love so deep is washing over me”

I like the allusion that God’s grace/mercy/love is so vast, so overwhelming, that we can’t possibly contain it. It’s such a force that we can do nothing but sink deeply into it, be completely overtaken by it. It’s immovable, it’s immeasurable, it’s incredible, and it’s yours for the taking.

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Music Monday 01.12.15

“Future/Past” John Mark McMillan

I traveled quite a bit during the holidays so I decided to take a break from the Music Monday posts as I focused on visiting with friends and family. The holidays are now over and 2015 is well underway. As I was deciding on which song I felt led to begin the year in this series, I found myself reflecting on another blog I’m working on right now. Thinking about that led me to this song that was introduced to me late last year. I love most of John Mark McMillan’s worship songs (“How He Loves” is my favorite) and this one was no exception. To me, the lyrics are a simple way of praising the beauty of how intertwined God is with our lives. Everything that happened/is happening/will happen to me last year, the year before, this year, next year, etc… it’s all connected to my relationship with Christ. He is my most powerful yet loving and tender relationship. He is my friend, He is my first, He is my last. Here is to a 2015 where I allow Him to be my future and my past.

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Music Monday 12.01.14

“How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan (performed by David Crowder Band)

If you’ve ever seen or heard me lead worship or just know anything about me as a worship leader, you’re probably surprised that I’m just now sharing this song…in other words, I use this song a lot. Why? Because I love it. I think it’s one of the most powerful worship songs ever written, on par with “Shout to the Lord”, “Awesome God”, and “Oceans”.

The music is great but what really gets me are the lyrics. You spend the entire song dwelling on how much He loves each and every one of us. My two favorite lines from the song are incredible representations of just how much He loves us.

He is jealous for me

Jealous is such a powerful word that typically carries a negative connotation. Here it’s meant to express how badly God desire to have your attention. He doesn’t just want it, he’s jealous for it. He’s jealous for you. I had never really thought of it before. Scripturally, we know that God is jealous God, it’s plainly written down for us, but it’s something that hadn’t really dawned on me until I sang it. He doesn’t just love me, He’s jealous for me.

If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking

Some scientists have suggested that we know less about the deepest parts of the ocean than we do about space, that’s how deep and vast the ocean is. McMillan compares God’s grace to the ocean and I think that’s about as close as we can get to describing the vast mystery that is God’s grace (and it’s still not even close to being enough). His grace and His mercy and His love for us is so vast that we’re drowning in it, it’s inescapable. That thought just makes me smile every time I sing this.

How fortunate we are to have a God that loves us like He does. As undeserving as we are and as much as we try to reciprocate we simply can’t because we can’t begin to fathom His love.

(Side note: I’m a “unforeseen kiss” kind of guy.)

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Music Monday 10.20.14

“Forever Reign” by Hillsong Worship

Good. Love. Light. Hope. Peace. True. Joy. Life. More. Lord. Here. God.

One of the biggest reasons I love this song is how it talks about all of the ways God is and wants to be to us. Listed above are all words which are used in this song to describe who God. He is good, He is love, He is light, hope, peace, true, joy, life, Lord, here, and God…but the word that stands out most to me is more. He is “more than my words will ever say”.

Despite all of these being great ways to describe our heavenly Father, we can never adequately capture the depths of His love and affection for us. We can never fully understand or explain exactly who He is to us and what we mean to Him. The best part is that we don’t have to understand, explain, or describe Him completely. Our best is never truly good enough but it’s all He asks of us. All He wants is for us to run to His arms.

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.