Waiting and Waiting

I am still confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the LORD
    in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27:13-14. These words have become the underlying theme of my unemployed and restless season of life. Life has been slow and somewhat mundane. Every day is starting to look and feel the same. It's neither good nor bad (though there are days when it's one or the other). But over all, it's neither good nor bad. I don't expect a flurry of events to bring excitement and busyness. I am not bored with God. Rather, I am impatient to see how His promises for my life will present itself right now. This, if it isn't clear enough already, is my selfish heart speaking. Why do I think I am entitled to see God's promises in my life? I don't know. But God makes a promise to me in His word:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose - Romans 8:28-29

It's not that I feel I am being punished or deprived of anything. It's just easier to doubt God's promises when life circumstances tell you something different. Psalm 27 reminds me that I must wait. God is who He says He is. This means everyday...I have to choose to fight for confidence in what has been promised.

Yes, I'm confused and frustrated and lacking direction because any direction is out of my control. Yet, I feel that I am being prepared for something. I don't know what it is, obviously. It could bring an unbearable pain or joy beyond measure. It could be something completely random that could set off an incredibly beautiful chain of events. Whatever is coming, I know that God is asking me to wait and not rush what is going to be. What more does patience ask for than faith? Faith is confidence in the character of God...that He's who He says He is. There are days in when I believe He's who He claims to be. There are days when I don't because my perspective of God's faithfulness is clouded by my wavering emotions and impatience. The beautiful thing is that it doesn't matter how I may or may not feel because God does not change nor does He fail, regardless of what I believe He is doing. And by the grace of God, despite all of this, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is God in all things. Because of that...I have a reason, a purpose to be who He has called me to be: His daughter, His love, His vessel and ambassador. 

He holds all things together. He is real and living. He's my Redeemer who promises victory. He's my Savior who took my punishment and freed me from the yoke of slavery. He's my God who did not spare His Son, but gave him for me...that I may know Him and His goodness. He keeps His promises and I will pray expectantly that I will see them...that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 

I will leave with what is becoming an anthem of my heart. 

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Sing Like Never Before, O My Soul.

I believe the psalms put into words the cry of our hearts, whether in pain or joy. Many passages in the Bible give us a history of our faith or instruct us and encourage us to persevere and point us directly to Jesus. Yes, the psalms do this. But as I have read psalms, I feel as if I am reading 150 testimonies of how the Lord manifested Himself to these specific musicians.

A psalm is a song or poem sung or played with an instrument. Today, we read them but rarely think about how the writers sang it or played it on an instrument. The psalms show us that more often than not, these writers' responses to anything they experienced in life was to externally process through song. Whether David was rejoicing, mourning, or simply in awe of God...he praised God through music in some way, shape or form. Psalm 51's short commentary says "A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba." If you read this psalm, you can almost hear David weeping in remorse and repentance as he sings. Psalm 18 is David's musical response when He is delivered from the hand of Saul...someone who, out of jealousy, tried to kill David time and time again. His words are transparent and raw. They are real. He doesn't sugarcoat how He's feeling about God.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm a lot like David in his response to life. Obviously I'm not a royalty. I don't live in palace nor command thousands of troops or go to war every 10 minutes. But the Lord has placed in me a passion and yearning for music. He allows me to sit in my room and belt out worship songs until I lose my voice because this purges me of anger, fear and frustration. While I can't write lyrics, I can sit with my guitar for an hour and simply play chords and picking patterns because brings peace and serenity. I imagine this is what David when he could spare a moment because for him, music drew him close to the Lord. Maybe not with a guitar...lyre or harp perhaps?

Evan, my dear brother in Christ, believes that, "...the product of music, like prayer or laughter or a meal with friends, can bring understanding and healing." Check out his blog!

http://ejbretzmann.tumblr.com/post/16760269552/i-listen-to-pilot-me-and-im-cliff-jumping-off

I couldn't agree more with Evan's words. For all of us, there is something that brings us so much life that it brings us to our knees. Something that leaves us feeling grateful and humbled.

Whether it's a song that causes us to shamelessly play air drums in a coffee shop or a movie score that leaves us only able to utter the words "soooo good," music stirs in us very real and lasting emotions we wouldn't otherwise experience in anything else. Whether you're shaking your head in complete unbelief of the mastery of sounds in Bon Iver's "And at once I knew/ I was not magnificent", or you're harmonizing to the almost perfect harmonies of the Civil Wars, music helps us understand, simply put, life. Music gives us words to say when we don't have our own. It brings a kind of joy and healing that nothing of human willpower can give us.

Our entire lives, be it literally or not, should sing of Jesus and what He has done for us. We are not meant to merely whisper of Jesus but PROCLAIM the Gospel with all that we are. We are called to live our lives in a manner worthy of the Gospel (Philippians 1:27). The way we represent Christ to others is the instrumental score of our lives. How we share our stories of going from death to life are the lyrics of redemption and the Gospel in our lives. Jesus is the baton that God, the Composer asks us to follow in order that those who have yet to join the symphony might be given the opportunity to be a part of the greatest composition in all of history. Biblical discipleship and ministry is the sound of those who live lives that sharpen one another (proverbs 27:17) and can thus create an almost perfect harmony of voices. The sound of these voices, if sung confidently through the following of the baton, can and WILL echo to the ends of the earth into nations that play their symphonies underground or fearfully. Or more importantly...to the nations that don't play at all and can't hear the echoes.

In whatever capacity or setting God leads me to, I desire to sing like I never have before. Of course we will never live every second of our lives with this desire. But I think it makes sense to at least desire it. I'm sorry if anything I just wrote made no sense or wasn't Christ-centered. I just wholeheartedly believe that this symphony is coming to loud, dissonant, beautiful and triumphant end in which the musicians and audience will not stand and clap to acknowledge the composer...but will bow down before Him in awe and reverence. What a sight that will be. Let's sing and play loudly.

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