t.ford

When worship became a popular genre in the mid nineties, a lot of great music came out … so did other music. I can’t stand worship songs that talk about some sort of “Divine Romance” I should have with Jesus. Yes I’m talking to you, Phil Wickham.
When I think of romance, I can only picture myself slowly leaning in to kiss Jesus on the mouth, and I can’t sing about something that disturbing.
Then there are lyrics that say things like, “You tell every lightning bolt where it should go…” I just saw a news report here in MN last week where a 12 year old girl got killed in front of her house by lightning while the neighbors watched. I can’t concentrate on worshipping God when I’m sitting there hoping I don’t get hit by a meteor.
The goofiest songs are when I sing about how people will dance with joy like I’m dancing right now, but I’m not dancing at all; neither is anyone in my row. And the people who I see dancing up there look ridiculous – like they don’t want to dance, but they don’t want to lie either, so they’re obligated.

Below is a list of songs that I do like – counting down the 14 songs that connect my heart to God in my favorite ways.

With a number of the songs in this list, really good lyrics move into greatness simply by the delivery. Tim Hughes belts these words out – halfway through a passion-evoking crescendo toward the end of the song – and what a great choice of words to belt out!

God’s word is clear that there will be trouble for us in the world; there’s gonna be pain and sadness and situations we can’t see any good in. Even a person whose relationship with the Lord might be the absolute closest imaginable, they’re going to hurt a lot – maybe even more than the rest of us.
We’re not promised happiness (different than joy), but that when we don’t see light in our darkness, we won’t be overcome by it, and that in our despair not even we can convince God to quit pursuing the deepest parts of us in truth.
He is with us – in our coming and our going.

It’s a very humbling, yet strengthening thought that we can be knocked down, but we can’t be defeated. Sometimes the only place to find strength for today is in the hope God promises for tomorrow. One of my favorite things to remember and meditate on is that:
We spend our lives in Good Friday – but we live with the faith that Easter is coming!

There’s something honest about humility.

I volunteered at the Refuge for about a year – that’s a ministry at Woodland Hills for people going through some of the rougher aspects of life: addictions to alcohol, drugs, pornography, people going through divorces, the deaths of loved ones, or just people who don’t feel they “fit in” at church with all the cleaner people.

There wasn’t an ounce of pride in any of them; they’re weird like that. They were also aware of the freedom they have in Christ in ways I’ve rarely seen – or felt!
They know what life is like in the dark shadows of all the guilt that comes from their worst shit … to the point that they probably didn’t notice that word.
They know better than most what living in darkness and hopelessness feels like, and because of that, coming into the bright sunlight of God’s grace, hope and unconditional love awakens them to who they were created to be. They’re some of the most refreshing people to be around, especially when they worship.

God’s grace is fully ours in all of the darkest parts of our souls – the parts we wish weren’t there and don’t want anyone else to find in us. But where we feel the consequences of the death in us, the spirit of God enters and brings new life!

He loves us as we are, but too much to let us stay there. And it’s in our renewing that we get equipped to love others with that same incurable Hope in our siblings.

[The version of the song that's in the player is from the Passion: OneDay live CD, but my favorite version is from Breakaway Ministries, a church service that met on the campus of Texas A&M. It's one of my favorite worship CDs.]

“‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord.’
Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”
2 Corinthians 6:18 – 7:1

What makes these lyrics work their way into my will when I sing them is the first three words that repeat in each sentence, “Give me one…”
I know that there are dozens of things I’ve pursued this week, and I’m sure the priority is often on things that should be further down the list.

When some people heard Jesus’ words, they started to lose interest and quit following him, saying what he was suggesting was too hard to make their sole priority. That’s when he asked his disciples, “Do you want to leave too?”
Peter often said some of the lamest things in the bible, but this time delivered, “Lord, where else could we go? You alone have the words that give life.”

When I sing this song, it calls me back to the one thing that truly has value: to know God and to look to him for my definition.

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
Ecclesiastes 5:2

In Exodus 4, when Moses was stressed about all his humanness getting in the way of what God was asking him to do, God reminded him who he was talking to.
When Job started to have all sorts of ideas about what should happen with his life and how things should work, God was almost sarcastic when he asked, “Where were you when…”
Many times in the new testament, Jesus said things that people in their ignorance couldn’t receive or understand. “My ways don’t often look anything like yours.”

I’ve been told I spend a lot of time in my head; being still is not something I do well – even when I quit moving and I’m by myself. I wonder what I should be doing. I need to fill up the silence. If there’s nothing to do, then I’d rather do nothing with music or TV or the internet.
I could even distract myself from silence by doing Christian things. I’ll stay and volunteer more time here at the church, or I could pick up and read a theology book or even put worship music on just to keep my mind numbly occupied. That way, I stay busy and I look all Jesusy to people.

I can hardly handle the silent awkwardness of standing in an elevator for 30 seconds with a stranger. But I could be silent in a room for days with someone I deeply love – because some other sort of communication is going on there. You’re not nervous about what to say to them or what they’re thinking of you – because you know.

To stand in God’s presence with no agenda, with nothing to say or do except to know God and be fully known … I need to practice that.

This is not a love song, but it is about unrequited love.

Ezekiel 16 starts off telling the story of how God valued his people, Israel – and how, in love, he made a covenant with them.
From there, it tells of what Israel did with God’s provisions, blessings, promises and love.
Then it ends with God saying how, despite how faithless they are to him, he will still honor his covenant to his bride.

This doesn’t define our full relationship with God (through Christ), but it does speak of our commitment and faithfulness.

We are Israel. And it’s not just that we go other places to get entertained or distracted, sometimes it’s to search for life and meaning and value in places we’ll never find it.

It’s great and wonderful to sing about the grace, mercy and forgiveness we find in Christ – that couldn’t be more true. But in there somewhere is the difference between an apology and true, gut-wrenching repentance. It’s easy to say “I’m sorry for hurting you (or “sorry that you’re hurting”),” then rejoice in the fact that our sins aren’t held against us. But repentance requires that we look at ourselves for how we’ve treated God, how we’ve thought of him, or how we’ve taken his love and commitment for granted. We need to know ourselves like that because we need to see what God overlooks to love us like he does.

Praise God that we’ve got a Savior that is always waiting at the alter for his bride to run back down the aisle to him!

Obsession might be the weightiest worship song I know of. Delirious has it on a couple of their CDs and, in the first one (not the one in the player), you can hear the singer breathing heavily in between the slow words. Then when he speaks it’s like he can’t hold those heavy thoughts anymore and they just start falling out of him…

What can I do with my obsession, with the things I cannot see? Is there madness in my being? Is it wind that blows the trees?…

Brennan Manning has gotten tons of criticism for his remarks in the Ragamuffin Gospel where he was talking about being still before God, “Don’t try to feel anything, think anything, or do anything…just sit back, and relax in the presence of the God you half-believe in and ask for a touch of folly (pgs 205-206).
If we’re honest, faith can sometimes be a struggle. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s my faith but rather my obedience – but I think that’s still faith. I like the prayer, “God I believe in you, help my unbelief,” that’s honest. There are times I think or feel something and can’t tell if it’s God or me talking.

That’s why I love this song. It speaks of a freedom to wonder those things before God, to tell him that he feels a universe away sometimes and we can’t figure him out. But that we still believe he surrounds us like a fog we can’t get out of. His word tells us that we won’t ever feel truly at home here on earth, that we have innate needs and desires for things that only get met in the Savior that we eagerly await (Philippians). We’re longing to be closer than we often feel we are.

And my heart burns… yes it burns…

God doesn’t really have wings. I’m not sure he literally sits on a throne either – maybe he does. And Jesus wasn’t really having a conversation with actual snakes in Matthew 23:33.
These are metaphors, right?

Unless we think our Savior was actually a lamb – with beady eyes, wool and hooves – we know that all these pictures are there to communicate something cool about the Lord.
To walk on waves, run with clouds and paint the sky speaks of God’s Lordship over all those powerful forces, and the creativity behind all their beauty.

A number of songs focus on the “God of Wonders” in Psalm 19, and all the majesty that’s his. What I love about this song is how it moves from the bigness of God to the intimacy of a love song. And when those lyrics come in, it always makes me wish I had a better voice to deliver music like that.

This song may have gotten overplayed when it came out; I hardly ever hear it anymore. Singing it now is kind of like saying the pledge of allegiance – you know the words so well that you can sing it without thinking about what you’re saying.
At the height of Matt Redman’s rise to fame as a great worship leader/song-writer, he confesses, “I’m sorry, Lord for the thing I’ve made [worship out to be]. It’s all about you, Jesus.”

Therefore, I urge you, siblings, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.
Romans 12:1

I would bet that the most worshipful times in my life (and any believers I know) didn’t include any music. I probably didn’t even feel like singing in those times.
Bohnhoeffer says, “When Christ calls you, he bids you, ‘Come and die.’” Singing worship songs sounds easier than being a living sacrifice. It seems like the equivalent of hoping the flowers you brought your spouse on your anniversary communicates your love no matter what you did all year. Flowers is great icing on the cake only if they’re from someone who was good at showing love the rest of the year.

Ephesians 5 says to walk in the way of love as Christ did, giving himself up for us as a fragrant offering to God. When I read that, it hit me that I can’t think of anytime we read about Jesus singing a song. Did he? Seriously, I don’t remember. But his life was a sweet aroma to God.
I wonder if that’s why there are so many songs that talk about God’s love for us, how he saves us, how we’re his favorite ones, what he does for us. If the goal of worship time in a church setting is so that we come away feeling good and that we had moments of intimacy with God, then it would make sense that we focus on things that were there for us when we got there and that will be there whenever we feel like thinking about them later.
But when I sing a lyric like, “I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required…” I can’t help but think of my life outside of church. It’s a promise about my life, and I hope it helps keep me honest with the Lord.

There are times in worship where new thoughts and words are helpful and refreshing. They can be prayers to God that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought to say:
“Let what we do in here fill the streets out there…”
“Blessed be your name, on the road marked with suffering; when there’s pain in the offering…”
“I like bananas. I think that mangos are sweet. I like papayas…”
…and all those other profound worshipful insights.

But it seems that even still, the most engaging songs for me have been the ones that come right out of God’s word.
I have times in prayer where, even as I’m talking, I’m thinking, “Should I even be asking for this? Does this prayer show God my lack of perspective on things that really matter? Why am I bringing these things to God, really?”
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray (Matthew 6 & Luke 11), Jesus summed up all that’s important in this life and showed us how to come to God. He didn’t do the typical Jesus thing where he answered their question with a question, hoping to draw them to their own conclusion and reveal that everyone’s heart will eventually lead them to honest prayer. He did the opposite; he let us know that there were things to concern ourselves with that are definitive and that lead us to the heart of God.

“Two things you told me, that you are strong and you love me.” This song has nothing in it except what Jesus told us to dwell on.
I often lose confidence in what I’m saying to God – I’m suspicious of my own sincerity when I promise him things. It’s in those times I need to fall down at his feet and just remember that even in all that, his Love is stronger than I’ll ever need it to be. The chorus concentrates on that when it repeats the words, “Your love is, your love is, your love is…” it helps me block out all the other thoughts and words, and then I’m thinking only of what God’s love is…
It’s the strongest substance in creation, redeeming every weakness in it’s path.
It’s truer than the sun.
And it’s all mine – with a vengeance.

Sometimes Chris Tomlin feels like the Max Lucado of music, fluffing things up to sell at the bookstore (really, you have a worship song called America?). But I think he nails it more often than not. This is another lyric that takes one of the most impressive parts of God from the bible and builds a song around it.

Romans 12 is that odd verse that talks about being loving to your enemies as to “heap burning coals on their heads.” There are a number of ideas of what that might mean, but the point is that being loving to people has the power to effect them in ways that “pay-back” never could. It’s the same with us.
If God were a bad father, he’d wait for us to mess up and blast us when we didn’t please him. We would grow to be scared of him and resist any kind of intimacy. Luckily he’s a loving Father who, in all cases, shows his love in his kindness towards us.

Romans 2 says that God’s kindness is what leads us to repentance. That’s more profound than I think we often give it credit for. Most people feel like it’s God’s judgement, wrath, disappointment or anger that would lead us to change our ways. That’s how normal discipline, and “behavior modification” works.

One of the more powerful stories I’ve heard of a Christian being Christ-like was a prisoner who was being brutally beaten day after day with no hope of their imprisonment ending. Eventually the man who came in to beat her said, “How does it feel to know that I have all the power over you – I could give you your freedom or take it from you, I even choose whether or not you live or die.”
“That’s not real power,” she said, “even that authority was given to you by someone over you. Real power is that I can love you while you do it and you can’t keep me from it.”
I believe that story ended with the guard’s transformation.

That kind of love goes against everything we feel is just in life. But a love like Jesus’, to feel it on us, through us and flowing from us, his love is better than life.

There have been times in my life when I’ve met some very impressive people. Not that they were super talented or real famous or even that noticeable to the world – I mean their character or their heart or their humility impressed me in ways I don’t often feel.
One of them was a truck driver, one of them was an orphan, one was an elderly shut-in that I talked to for 45 seconds in Wisconsin.
…and yeah, one of them is Franky.

When people personify the values, priorities, and the economy found in the backwards kingdom of God (even if I just see it for seconds), it clashes so vividly with what I’m used to seeing that it can literally take the breath out of me.

Have you ever seen someone and had the thought, “Whoa, that person is being a beautiful example of Jesus in a way that would have never occurred to me,” and it made you kind of pause because you may have just seen a bit of the kingdom come?
It’s so hard to believe that Jesus was like that all the time – everyday.

Every good thing we pursue: all the unconditional love that we fail at, all the integrity that we wish we had, all the patience we will always lack – it’s all summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. Even when people are at their most impressive, it’s not because they’re creating good, but how well they embody the already existing heart of Christ.
Even though it’s still like flexing a muscle, when we’re temporarily able to walk like Christ throughout our lives, the payoff isn’t our own happiness (not guaranteed), the results in our effort (not guaranteed), the recognition of our goodness (not guaranteed), or any other prize.

Knowing Jesus and becoming more like him is the reward itself.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
Philippians 3:10

Robinson wrote this at 22 years old, as more of a autobiographical song than anything else.
In the second verse, he talks of his conversion. In the third he speaks of his daily debt to God’s grace, and asks to be bound to God’s goodness like a fetter (with shackles).

The sad story of Robinson’s own wandering once had him on a stage coach where a young woman was sharing her faith with him, as she saw him as one who needed to be led to God. She quoted “Come Thou Fount” to him saying that those words might be helpful to him as they have been to her.
“Madam,” he sobbed, “I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago. I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.”

This is the battle. I feel it too, prone to wander from God all the stinking time; it’s like gravity! How lame is that!? I can think of times I stop and can actually articulate that my thoughts are as coherent as, “Well, God would most likely want to see me do [A] right now, but [B] seems more appealing, more comfortable, and less work.”
It’s the struggle Paul talks about in Romans 7, “I do the things I don’t want to do, but the things I want to do, those things I don’t do.”

Have you ever had the thought, “I wish I were just a robot that didn’t have my own choices. I wish God would just take my will from me, then I would always choose what he would want me to.”
I think that’s the difference between evil and weakness. I think God works with our weakness when we admit it a lot easier than he could work through our malice, because malice is forged with determination to keep it just so.
Evil knowingly seeks it’s own self-serving purposes, while weakness often just lacks the strength to push against the darkness in and around us…and I’m so aware of the darkness in me. It grosses me out at the same time it compels me to passivity.

That’s why this song ends in a beautifully broken place, “Lord, seal my heart with your will [while I'm here and my spirit is temporarily willing].”

God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10

That movie where Morgan Freeman explains all about penguins is insane.
The entire population has an arrangement that was never explained to any of them. The chick penguins leave while the guys stand still for four months without eating. Then the chicks come back, almost to the day, when their eggs are hatching. The entire penguin race hangs in the balance of the timing, skill, and patience of birds who have never done what they’re doing before, yet know every step of the process.

Those ideas aren’t the penguins’ ideas. The bears didn’t come up with the plan to sleep through the winter. Praying mantis females don’t make conscious decisions for premeditated murder when they eat their mate after they … mate.
These are things they are designed to do.

Most of the time, I like to think I’m my own person. As we grow up, it’s assumed that we are to become more and more independent and in control of our own lives. But what I love about this song is that it reminds us of our dependence on God, not necessarily as a weakness, but as part of our design that keeps our hearts looking for him. It’s like we’re the dude penguins, and we have this, sometimes-hard-to-articulate, awareness in us that we are to wait for the return of the one we partner with, God.

“What was said to the rose to make it unfold” is eluding to all the thought, creativity and wisdom that God used to create (from nothing) such a thing without the ability to think, but that knows to open itself up to find sunlight – the source of it’s life. And the same wisdom that went into the rose’s design was part of ours.
Ecclesiastes says God has set [thoughts, desires, compulsions and an appetite for] eternity into the heart of every person. Deep calls to deep; the strong love of God draws our souls to him.

But, unlike the rose, we have the ability to think, and so the ability to be too busy to open our hearts to God on a daily basis.
So be quiet now…

Fact: this is the best worship song ever written.

I see your glory, covering the earth Lord
Just as the waters, covering the sea
I see the millions, coming to salvation
I see revival fire in the land
I see the lost, nameless ones remembered
I see the widows shouting out your praise
I see the friendless, loved and celebrated
Orphans fullfilling Lord, your calling on their lives

Do It Lord, do it Lord
Do it Lord we are praying
Do it Lord, do it
That your glory may be seen

I see forgiveness over taking hatred
Pride and prejudice now giving way to love
I see depression replaced with joy and gladness
And Satan’s lies now bowing to the truth

This is our prayer oh God
This is our desperate cry
In these days that were living now
Let your kingdom come
Let your will be done

I see the brokenness of families brought to wholeness
I see the prodigals running home to you
Father’s hearts now turning toward their children
And the children’s hearts turning toward the fathers
I see your Church all rising up in power
Laying down their lives in unity and love
I hear the sound of every tribe and nation
Giving glory to Jesus Christ the Son

To be honest, I can get bored singing about myself. There’s an endless amount of worship songs that focus on how I feel, how God benefits me, or how I’m personally the apple of God’s eye. This song doesn’t mention me at all, and I love that.
Jesus taught us to pray for our relationship with him, but also for the coming kingdom. I would imagine he wants to see those same things reflected in the way we worship him too.

In Acts 6 and 7, Stephen goes before the high court being tried for blasphemy. In 7: 56, he says, “Look. I see heaven open up and see Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
They, of course, went bat-poop crazy.

I wonder how Stephen saw what he saw. Was it genuinely there to be seen, but only revealed to him? Could anyone have seen it had they just looked up? Was it through his imagination like when Joseph and the magi saw visions of the newborn Jesus being killed by Herod? Whatever it was, I’m so curious what it actually looked like to Stephen when he saw Jesus standing with God.

This song is an imaginative prayer; it’s a biblical vision that we can choose to see of what God’s coming kingdom looks like.
When you picture hatred, where is it? Who is it? How do they show it? …
How do the faces change of everyone in the picture when hatred is replaced by forgiveness?

There are no broken families or any broken relationships in God’s kingdom…
That means we don’t seek the demise of racists and terrorists, but rather we see the redemption of our brothers and sisters in the K.K.K. and the Taliban.

What if we quit giving authority to Satan’s lies?
How many suicides would there be? Who would be depressed? What if all armies and soldiers quit seeing other children of God as threats to themselves?

I know the bible says we can’t fathom all the sweetness in the kingdom, but this song surely gets us closer!
To fix my mind on the will of God in the lives of every orphan, every widow, every sibling, and every enemy, and to agree with God of their value and share in his hope for their redemption – that is the most biblical and Christ like prayer I can utter.
DO IT LORD!