Have you ever tried to describe something you really loved? It’s pretty difficult, I think. No words really seem capable of describing that love. This is the way I’m starting to feel about worship music.
I guess it started last week, when I decided I wanted to find some new worship music to listen to. The songs I’d been singing just didn’t seem good enough. So I asked around, listened to some new songs which were great, but that emptiness was still there. Then I started to ask myself: what was I really looking for? Was it beautiful music? There was plenty of that out there. Moving lyrics? A little harder to find, but still attainable. No, what I was really looking for was passion. It was heart.
Here’s what I realized: the kind of passion we all need to have in worship can never be recorded. Words can never describe the greatness of God. Sure, we can say “awesome,” “beautiful,” “holy” and “great,” but God is so much more than that. Our music should be the most amazing thing on earth(it’s what He deserves), but our own meager efforts at musicality could never approach the beauty of God.
We can’t even dream of getting close to God through some nice song. It just won’t happen. All we can do is pour out our heart, our every fiber of existence, humbly at His feet. He’ll take care of the rest.
I think I want to write some worship music that is hard to listen to. Something unsettling. I hope some people will hate it; I think that’s the point. It won’t be clean, but it will be from my heart. That’s what counts.
“Then the man bowed low and worshiped the LORD.”–Genesis 24:26
