As he was drawing near–already on the way down the Mount of Olives–the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.“
(Luke 19:37-40)
wow.
I’ve read several people’s thoughts recently on how they have doubts in their faith, one of them being a completely jaded cynic who has no regard or respect for Christians anymore.
I find this very sad yet unsurprising.
Even as I read these posts and see the logic behind every one of them, the doubts come quickly. I mean, what if it really ISN’T real? What if my whole life is being set up for a giant let-down when I die? What if everything I believe in – the entire Bible – is wrong? I can totally understand where these people are coming from, and honestly, their thoughts seem logical. After all, it does seem like we are sheltering ourselves for nothing.
One writer says that Christians delude themselves with constant falsities, that we are brainwashing ourselves to believe something that is not true. She went on to say that we will all one day finally understand that we have been living with our heads in the sand, trying vainly to stay aloof to the harsh reality that there is no God. Continue reading ‘Faith.’
This quarter is going better than I expected it to. I was initially really worried about music team and intimidated by the daunting task it is to do it every week. However, God has been sooo gracious to allow me to have a skillful, forgiving team who is ready and willing to go with me into the Holy of Holies every week, as well as supportive leaders who are equally forgiving (Ed and Justin). As each week goes by, I get more and more excited to worship as a team, cuz man corporate worship is just something special. Personal time in worship is wonderful, but when you know other people are sharing that with you and your voices/instruments are unified in praise, man that is just great. I can’t wait for this Friday.
We’re doing a lot of cool stuff musically, and I hope it is an overflow of the joy of worship we have in our hearts. If it is merely musicians trying to be cool, it’s worthless; but by God’s grace, our best efforts at a skillful worship session will be found a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
So it’s 1:15am right now and I should be sleeping, but I don’t feel like it so I won’t, yet. (Eat that, life.)
One of my favorite songs is a song by John Mayer called “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.” Now normally I don’t listen to lyrics, so I can say that I primarily like this song because of the melody, the ambience, and simply the feeling I get when I listen to it. Tonight I decided to finally look up these mysterious words he sings, and here is a section:
It’s not a silly little moment
It’s not the storm before the calm
This is the deep and dyin breath of
this love we’ve been workin on
Can’t seem to hold you like I want to
so I can feel you in my arms
Nobody’s gonna come and save you
we pulled too many false alarms
We’re goin down
and you can see it too
We’re goin down
and you know that we’re doomed
my dear
we’re slow dancing in a burnin room
don’t you think we oughta know by now
don’t you think we shoulda learned somehow …
See, now that you know that I listen to this song frequently, would you say that I’m emo-ish and that I am a glum, mellow fellow who does a lot of thinking? I hope not, because none of that is true. I simply listen to the song because it sounds good. Sure, the lyrics are cool, but simply because it fills up the space of a melody nicely.
I’d say that many musicians will agree with me that most of the meaning of a song is in the music, not the lyrics (I could be wrong, and maybe it’s just me.) A talented musician will be able to convey the message he wants with the mere musical presence of the song. Notes, chords, and the sequences are so much more effective than words will ever be.
Man, there’s something just so great about a band that grooves just right, when everything clicks together and you know you’re sharing a moment with people who can appreciate it too. In that moment, you don’t need words to be like “Hey, man that was AWESOME!” Forget that. Don’t wreck it trying to capture what is too fleeting with clumsy English words. Just enjoy it.
Lyrics are so wannabe cool because they make you feel intelligent when you can take a piece of it and “apply” it to yourself.
like this:
don’t you think we oughta know by now?
*hate hate hate* psh.
also, happy birthday to becca tang. Everyone wish her a good one because she deserves it.
