Part five of the introduction to The God Show, right now making the point that God has filled the earth with his glory in subtle ways that are easy to miss. But when you begin to see them, it can start to change how you see everything else. The first four parts are down the post ladder – I’ll post a link to them all together soon.
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In the old days I loved music and bought hundreds of albums -- some mainstream rock and roll, with lots of eclectic things mixed in. After Jesus, I lost interest and went many years without listening to any of my albums or tuning around on the radio. I only listened to music containing a direct spiritual message. Not because of a “should” – it’s just what I was interested in.
Much later, I occasionally scanned around on the radio and as I heard the songs I used to listen to, I realized I was hearing them differently. Soaking up the Bible for years had morphed how I listened and opened up things I'd never noticed before.
I heard the passion of being human, of being a slave to desires, of longing for perfect love and being heartbroken over missing it. Indirectly, I found some songs very spiritual – examples of hungering for something undefined yet real, as if there’s something floating invisible and unnamed in the air and an artist can snatch it and capture it even though they can’t say what it is or where it comes from.
I mentioned earlier Tozer’s book Pursuing God and The Speaking Voice chapter – I think he nails there what’s going on:
“Every good and beautiful thing which man has produced in the world has been the result of his faulty and sin-blocked response to the creative Voice sounding over the earth.”
And “Could it be that a genius is a man haunted by the speaking Voice, laboring and striving like one possessed to achieve ends which he only vaguely understands?” He says people “may miss God in these labors...he may even have spoken or written against God” but these are still “vague stirrings toward immortality.”
I don’t hear these stirrings in all songs. But in many, I almost worship, as singers unknowingly reveal the futility of striving for satisfaction apart from God,
Oh yeah, like what? Well we could start with one that's not vague at all: the search for truth, the gap to get there that you can’t cross, the yearning for something sacred that seems like it was taken out of your soul -- something not lost but stolen. It’s the theology of redemption from the personal view of the unredeemed, unenlightened person, all packaged in a catchy, entertaining pop performance that disguises the hungering search within.
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