A song I grew up on

I grew up in a house which was filled with music. My dad has been a guitarist for longer than I've lived, and he's probably lead worship more times than I could imagine. I have really fond memories falling asleep to contemporary worship songs with amazingly intimate, poetic, and deeply expressive lyrics. This is a song I've been thinking about recently, and it's probably one of my all-time favorites:

In the stillness of this hour
I worship you my Lord
Crying holy is the Lord on high

In the quiet of my heart
I sing this song of praise
Crying holy is the Lord on high

And for all my days
I will bow down before you
Giving glory and honor
To your name
And for all of my life
I will worship and adore you
Crying holy is the Lord on high.

Copyright © 1989 Mercy Publishing. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Lord, make my hour still and my heart quiet. Let me find you there.

My resume of failure

Lately I've been feeling like a no-good failure. I am trying to market myself to graduate schools which requires a resume. My list of acheivements is very short. My test scores are terrible, my awards and special honors are close to none, my ensemble chair placement is very low for my class and experience level, my GPA is average at best, and my work ethic is terrible. I am not very productive or efficient. I have trouble completing very basic tasks which are essential to my future. The good teachers out there work hard to cater to a variety of learning styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. My learning style doesn't easily mesh with any of these styles. In short, the world considers me mediocre, if not a failure.

My mother wrote on this subject recently:

Then I think how easily we misunderstand what's required of us. How we bounce between shame and bravado. How we just don't get it that our only option is to fall on the mercy. That only the mercy can save us. That only the mercy has power.

I'd like to say we don't get to disqualify ourselves because of failure. We're called to serve: Feed my sheep. Hail Frodo of the Nine Fingers. Four precious children to raise.

Shame has no place in mercy.

And we don't get to qualify ourselves because of competence. It's only the mercy.

Failure + mercy = power. Power released through humility. Redemption empowered by grace. Treasure in earthen vessels. Strength made perfect in weakness. The depth of the riches of the glory of Christ...

Dawn thinks it's a blessing that my strengths are not quantifiable, and I've had to take some time to consider why she said that. My strengths can't really be measured with awards, tests, special honors, ensemble chair placements, or the way I learn. The members of the panel who are to decide my admittance to their school will never comment, "Look at the listening skills on that guy!" just as a typical college guy won't say, "Did you see the brains on that girl?!" They frankly don't care. The world demands tangible proof of my worth.

Since I can't usually prove my worth outside of the Bible, I end up being pulled towards humility. And not by choice. Dawn probably considers this a blessing because worldly success is actually a curse. It causes us to seek pleasure, wealth, affluence, fame, happiness, and everything else which doesn't last or satisfy. Worldly success also gives us the illusion that we belong in the world, and that we certainly don't need God: someone who is also not easily quantified.

Praise God that when He opens up personal assistant positions, my resume of failure is exactally what He is looking for.

Contemplating lyrics

I am about to give out the url to this blog, so I'd better get writing. I have received some great encouragement to get going, so here it goes.

I think that God speaks to me the most tangibly and most frequently through music. Sometimes the music has words, sometimes not. There is one song that has affected me every time I hear it, as though the Holy Spirit were right next to me, telling me, "It'll be ok."

"Fade to Grey" by Jars of Clay

It's not hard to know what you're thinking
When you look down on me now
Your trance of love is seeking
To turn this world around
But in my state of blind confusion
No, God can pull me out
I see your love is willing
To turn me inside out

And then I see you there
The lonely tears I cry
I wish they'd release me

It's in despair that I find faith
Summon the night to bow down to day
When ignorance is bliss
Save me from myself

Chorus:

And then I see You there
With Your arms open wide and You try to embrace me
These lonely tears I cry
They keep me in chains and I wish they'd release me
Cold is the night but
Colder still is the heart made of stone, turned from clay
And if you follow me
You'll see all the black, all the white fade to grey

The references to blind confusion, tears keeping me in chains, seeing God with His arms open wide through tear-filled eyes, and the metaphor of the heart. The night is cold, but colder still is the heart if it's made of stone, turned from the clay that God formed it with. His love is willing to turn me inside out. I am not sure who the speaker of the last two lines is. It is either God, or the speaker whose tears keep him in chains.

Either way, I love this song because it always de-numbs my heart. It makes me wake up out of my everyday hard heart, breaking away the hard shell that forms around it because of the world I live in. It helps to bring the despair that is on the inside outward, because "It's in despair that I find faith."

I'm so glad that I blogged today instead of playing more computer games.