It was an adorable video. She was maybe 3 years old. She sat in front of a laptop with a video playing. She held a guitar about 4 sizes too big for her and she strummed that guitar for all she was worth (without, you know, actually playing it) and sang to the video loudly. "How wonderful! How marvelous! And my song shall ever be. How wonderful! How marvelous is my Savior's love for me." Really cute.
But ... you know ... she was three. I was pretty sure that she didn't know what "marvelous" meant. She didn't really get all the words in the right places. She was mimicking, not worshiping. And that's fine. But it got me to thinking. Do we do that? As adults?
I can't tell you how many young people I've sat down with who listened to their "favorite tunes" and I've asked them, "Do you know what it's saying?" "No," they tell me, "I just like the tune." Some tell me, "Sure", but they don't really. I remember an interaction with a pastor who was saying how much he liked Olivia Newton John's I Honestly Love You. I said, "Have you actually looked at those lyrics?" "Yeah, sure," he said. And then I pointed to the last verse. There it is revealed that the singer and the one to whom it is sung are both married ... to someone else. This was an adulterous love. "Are you sure you like that song?" He pulled it from his list. But that's often what we do. We get inculcated. We get sucked into the music. We get hypnotized in a sense. We're no longer noticing words; we're more into the music. If we know the words, they're coming out robotically, not from the heart. Maybe we're even swaying to the music (or whatever body language would fit). But we're not in the song; we're ... unconscious -- unaware of exactly what is being said.
When we go to church on Sundays, we tend to think of the singing time as "worship". Fine. I mean, worship is much larger than that, but the singing would be included in "worship". So if the intent is to glorify God, to praise God, to lift our hearts to Him, wouldn't it be good to do it consciously? Wouldn't it be wise to do it intentionally? Shouldn't we be there when we worship God rather than being cute and mimicking like that little 3-year-old with the guitar? I mean, sure, it's adorable ... but is it worship? We've always heard, "God doesn't want robots." Maybe not. I'm pretty sure He's not impressed with mindless worship. Let's give Him our best.
5 comments:
If you want to have some fun, check out the list of badly chosen wedding songs. Choices like "Run to You" and "I Will Always Love You" are amusing because of what they are actually about.
This hit me years ago, Days of Elijah was a pretty fun song to play and it's a catchy tune. Until the actual nonsense of the lyrics hit me and I realized what crap it was.
Now, I've been to more than s few churches where they'll pull out hymn # whatever and it's not only theologically bad but it's unsingable as well.
By age ten I thought I had a decent handle on the lyrics of the hymns we sang in church, with the exception being one which--whether I was aware of it at the time or not--quoted 2 Timothy 1:12 in the King James. I found that one impenetrable for a long time.
It is entirely possible to find silly (Richard), lousy (Craig), and baffling (Anonymous) songs in any church. I suppose that's why I keep urging us to engage our brains in our worship.
In "I honestly love you", is it really adultery? There's no indication that anything ever happened. It also leaves room for conjecture. "There you are with yours, and here I am with mine" could be referring to their hearts. At any rate, I've read that the "I honestly love you" was the whole reason for not letting the love affair bloom. He was telling her, (it was written by a man) that he loved her too much to allow this thing to go any further, but he did just want her to know.
I've loved the song ever since it came out. But, as you say, I had never listened closely to the words. To me it was just two young people, (I've always seen them sitting on a swing as they talked in my mind's eye) with one revealing a deep feeling for the other.
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