Since I was young I have struggled to understand the words of songs on the radio and a particularly embarrassing incident has left me with a life-long reticence about assuming. I find this to be important in Christian praise music since I have found some odd things in hymns over the years. So when I was listening to an unfamiliar song recently I came home and checked out the lyrics (Yeah Google!) because the beginning touched a nerve.
I was driving along when the song began with these words: "Here and now I'm in the fire, in above my head." Since that mirrored my thoughts, I found it interesting and, sure enough, reading the lyrics gave me the chuckle and perspective I'd been missing recently.
It seems a major crisis and I'm all fired up and work to keep my priorities in order and my eyes on God, but let me have a series of small incidents (friends or family with challenges, a sense I'm not meeting the demands of my ministry, crazy politics seeping into too many conversations, the need to adjust to changes--even good ones, a few small aches and pains) and my focus drifts from a passionate reliance on God to a deadening belief that I can handle the "small stuff" on my own.
And this seems to be particularly likely to happen when I'm being faithful in disciplines like prayer, study, worship, service and accepting responsibilities for a new "thing" God is calling me to ponder or improve. Then the focus starts to drift and the next thing I notice is that I am adrift. Thus it has been lately as I have struggled to keep perspective in a miasma of anxiousness.
So I start yet again, acknowledging that for a God who knows when a sparrow drops from a tree and how many hairs are on my head, I not only can relinquish even the smallest concerns to God's faithful care, but, indeed I need God's power every day just to keep doing consistently the things that work for me: prayer, praise, worship, service, study, fellowship and a heart open to the instruction of the Spirit of God.
So, I'll be listening to this song in the future, and remembering the writer's perspective...enduring the challenges, experiencing the pressure and taking the heat all lead to being made diamonds from the dust of our own need to rely wholly on our tender, loving God. The Spirit of God is amazing indeed.
I was driving along when the song began with these words: "Here and now I'm in the fire, in above my head." Since that mirrored my thoughts, I found it interesting and, sure enough, reading the lyrics gave me the chuckle and perspective I'd been missing recently.
It seems a major crisis and I'm all fired up and work to keep my priorities in order and my eyes on God, but let me have a series of small incidents (friends or family with challenges, a sense I'm not meeting the demands of my ministry, crazy politics seeping into too many conversations, the need to adjust to changes--even good ones, a few small aches and pains) and my focus drifts from a passionate reliance on God to a deadening belief that I can handle the "small stuff" on my own.
And this seems to be particularly likely to happen when I'm being faithful in disciplines like prayer, study, worship, service and accepting responsibilities for a new "thing" God is calling me to ponder or improve. Then the focus starts to drift and the next thing I notice is that I am adrift. Thus it has been lately as I have struggled to keep perspective in a miasma of anxiousness.
So I start yet again, acknowledging that for a God who knows when a sparrow drops from a tree and how many hairs are on my head, I not only can relinquish even the smallest concerns to God's faithful care, but, indeed I need God's power every day just to keep doing consistently the things that work for me: prayer, praise, worship, service, study, fellowship and a heart open to the instruction of the Spirit of God.
So, I'll be listening to this song in the future, and remembering the writer's perspective...enduring the challenges, experiencing the pressure and taking the heat all lead to being made diamonds from the dust of our own need to rely wholly on our tender, loving God. The Spirit of God is amazing indeed.
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