I hear it again....and again.
It is gentle and soft. I lean in so that I can hear it...this music. This song that comes from my Father's heart straight to mine. I feel this music caress me and I close my eyes and sit back, feeling safe and loved. I can almost see this music at times. It never stops playing but at times it is ever so faint and I catch myself feeling alone and sad when it begins to fade....but there it is again....always there....this song that is being sung over me.
Music has always been a part of my heart. It is how God created me. I have always felt music in the world around me even as a child. The wind's song....the bird's beautiful chorus...and swelling of the rain and thunder and through it all there has always been this song...I know now that it is my Father's song for me. The one He wrote just for me and the one He sings over me....I didn't always understand that and at times thought I was weird for always hearing the music....but not anymore. I am learning more and more to love this song that He sings...that He plays over me with the sweetest of sounds. I have always heard music in the story of people's lives. As a teen I use to write the music I heard in the stories of those around me and play them on the piano and to this day I have a folder full of the songs I have heard....and I have been thinking a lot about those songs.
It is proven that the whole earth actually "sings" and that even the stars and galaxies make music to our King. Music is a part of our King...and He shares that with us and within us....and the enemy hates music. That is why he distorts it and threatens the beauty of it with a cheap representation of the songs that God has written within His beautiful and terrifying grace. I have been thinking about that a lot as well....how so many of us walk around and never hear the song that God wrote just for us. How the enemy has filled our heads with so much noise that we can't hear that gentle song...calling out...reaching deep within us...and drawing us closer to the King.
I look around and my heart aches as I watch so many people scurry around, with that desperate look in their eyes...tears pulling their hearts down as they walk in shame and hurt. They don't hear the music of falling tears. The sound of a falling tear to me is one of the most beautiful sounds ever....for those are the collected tears God's Word tells us about and for our tears to be collected, means they have great worth and value. The music of those tears are not lost..which means the moments that created those tears have value.....they are collected by the One who listens to the stars and who takes each of those tears and creates music with them....the song He sings over us. I see my Abba Father....holding each tear so delicately and tenderly...and in each tear is a story and He takes each of those tears and He writes this song and those tears become music....they become our story. I know it may sound strange but think about it for just a moment....you have probably heard the music at some point. Some of you may walk daily with those songs in your heart and strengthening your spirit and some of you may not hear anything at all right now. And that's ok.
Let me share my heart with you for just a minute. I believe that every single person that is walking this earth right now as I write this, has a song. One that God wrote for them and one that is indescribably beautiful....But sin....is loud and it mimics the song of the King, only it can present itself as fun and flashy and full of light...and for many of us, we turn our ear away from the song of Christ and we turn our ear to the song of self. We don't even realize that we have tuned out the very song of the Holy Spirit, because all we can hear at that point is the song of self....which then becomes the song of shame and secrets. Before long, we bear the scars of those songs but don't even know how to make it stop. So we keep hiding, keep our secrets, our pride, and our bondage.
This year I have walked a very hard road and I have watched those most dear to me, lean into the song of the enemy...that fake and phony misrepresentation of a holy song that was written long before man took His first breath. I have seen the pain etched on their face and I have seen the desperate look in their eye....and they may even believe that God has stopped singing over them or that He never did to begin with....but I also know that my King has NEVER stopped singing. He has never once let a tear fall without collecting it. He has never once let a refrain from the enemy replace His song! He is still singing it....that beautiful song of love, forgiveness, repentance, acceptance and freedom. He will never stop singing it....and at times I can imagine His eyes as He is singing over one of His lost sheep. The passion that makes His voice tremble and the deep rolling sound of a Father who will never give up on His beloved. How I want to be like this! How I want His eyes that see past the actions and into the heart and still pursues. How I want to be a daughter who reflects her Father's song! Even now my Father is writing a song that will leave us all breathless and it is written in the stories of the most broken and "despicable" of people. It is written in the broken hearts of broken children who cry out to their Father and every. single. time.....He is there.
The enemy deceives well but one of his greatest deceptions is that the Holy Spirit is not present in the broken and ugly parts of our stories. The enemy has somehow convinced us that in the very darkest and ugliest of our secrets and shame, God turns His back on us in disgust. This goes against the very Word of God! Romans 5:8 gives us a little part of the music that is our song....it is the part where Jesus is WITH US IN OUR DARKEST moments. He has never walked away. He is there....singing His song...and I want to lean into that song. I want to close my eyes and soak that music into the very parts of me that are broken and defeated....and I want to hear the songs of others. I want them to see that they have a song that is beautiful! A love song that is the most exquisite of songs with music that is created by the tears of the prostitute, the brokenness of the addict, the exhaustion of the shamed, and the desperation of those going under. I listen to their stories and I think," How can they not know how beautiful their song is?"
So when I "stay" or "pray on" and some of you ask me why....it is because of the music. It is because I believe in the song that God has written for my husband and my children and those around me. It is because He gives me these beautiful glimpses into the writing of the song, and it leaves me in awe and wonder and fills my heart with hope....even when nothing changes around me. You can't "see" music....but you feel it, hear it, and it changes you....that is a lot like faith. I can't see it, but I have it, stand on it, and believe....and it changes me. I am grateful for the songs of the broken hearts....I am grateful for beautiful ashes of grace....and I am grateful that every time I want to just give up, the music is there....soft at times, barely heard in other moments....but always there. God's Word is music to me. The more I open it, the louder the song gets, and the more I am able to see the enemies song for what it is...a false, empty banging of shame and secrets.
I don't know what the next verse is in my song or yours. But I absolutely know without any doubt that it has been written by a Father who delights in singing it over us. I absolutely know without a doubt that He will never stop singing it....and I even wonder, and this is my pure opinion and nothing more, but I often wonder if when we each stand before Him, for those of us who never stopped and accepted His song for us...for those of us who rejected His truth....if in that moment He sings their song over them, with His eyes full of tears and compassion, even as they leave to go toward the home they chose to leave in forever, away from the Father....and for all of eternity, they are left to think about that song....
Dear friends....I pray you hear His singing. I pray you lean in and listen....quiet yourself long enough to know the tune that is yours and yours alone! He is there...He is HERE...right now....singing over you. Do you hear it? Take a deep breath....listen....lean in....do you hear?
