Today I was driving home from dropping Katie off at work. Tim was in the back of the van; the radio was playing, and on the radio was the song "How Many Kings," by Downhere. What a beautiful song, it brings me to really think how wonderful He is even just comparing Him at a mere human level--and yet, God is so far from any mere human comparison that the song, though it brought me even then to feel worshipful as I hadn't for days--falls so short of really developing who He is and how great He is, because it only contrasts God with men. What else can you effectively contrast God with, after all? I'm not criticising it, I love the song.
At the time that it came on the radio, I was thinking about Christian songs and how they fall into some main categories--because I have been thinking to select a bunch of really great hymns for a hymn-sing (if that's how you do it? I've never been to one). Some Christian songs are worshipful because they describe how God has done so much for us--which is valid; some are worshipful because they describe who God is--which I surmise is a little less self-centered; some describe our responses to God--which I suppose is least of these three categories.
The hymns are great in that they really do a masterful job at focusing on God and less on the believer; besides, they are put together with talent, thought, insight--the words to hymns are often packed with the deep, spectacular reality of God, with thoughts that don't seem jumbled together quickly, but which seem to have the marks of long meditation. It seems that there's a higher quality in the most recent Christian composition of songs than has happened in all the 18 years I've been a believer. I love it! I love the old, I love the new, and I'm not so crazy about most stuff from the 80s and 90s.
Maybe we shouldn't only have a hymn-sing, but a just plain worship-sing too, old songs and new! Hmmm. Pondering it is half the fun! Anticipating it is another half! And then participating in it--Fun and a half!
No comments:
Post a Comment