"Se."

A few years back, when I was in the midst of a situation I was completely unsure how to handle, and desperately needing God to direct me clearly, one early morning I found a message written in the sunrise-pinkened clouds. It was one word, and that in a foreign language, but it's the only foreign language I know any of. There in the east, where He knew I'd be looking, was the word se. In Spanish, it means, "I know."

In that moment, in the midst of all the questions raging through my heart and mind, all the uncertainty and nervousness and even doubt that I'd be able to discern God's voice amid the storm of my own emotions, that one word spoke volumes to my soul.

It was a reminder that He knew both my heart, and my situation. He knew. He knows. Intimately, at levels only He could ever understand, the levels I can just never seem to get into words or music or any other means of expression--He knows. Always. Se is present tense; and our God is ever-present.

It was a reminder that He was aware of more than I could be. He knew not only where I was, but what lay ahead of me. He knew every moment leading in and out of things, all the ways He was preparing my heart and setting the stage to speak to me in ways that would be undeniable.

It was a reminder that I didn't need to know it all--that my role was to trust Him. The more often I find myself in circumstances where I must deliberately give up my desire to know all the answers, the more often I wind up realizing later that if I'd known, I either would have fainted and given up, or my brain would have exploded. Either way, not very pretty. God's ways are truly higher than ours, and His thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens are above this tiny blue-green planet we call home for now.

So if you don't know what comes next, or how you're even supposed to make it through today, find your rest in the One who knows. He is our answer. Trust me, I've been there, in that place of fear and uncertainty and complete cluelessness, feeling like a shipwreck about to happen. But He's been there with me, every step. It's not that I've never faltered, but that He's never let me go.

He has walked with me through seasons I soon looked back on with anguish and regret, wondering how I could have been so blind and foolish, and certain that nothing beautiful could ever come of these ashes. But despite my certainty and my desire that such periods be erased from my history, He has used them. He's used them in ways that continue to blow me away, for He was not oblivious to things even when I was. He knew. He always knows.

There is nothing on this earth that ever happens without Him knowing about it, without Him seeing it happen. It may seldom make sense to us, why He allows so many things to happen, if He knows. But that's the thing: He knows what's at the end of it. He sees our pain, but He also sees how it will be worked together for good in the end. Miraculously, He takes even such darkness as sin and death, and uses them to beat Satan at his own game. Our Father is never caught off His guard by anything that happens. But in His sovereignty, He works all things together for the good of those who love Him--those He's called according to His purposes. And you know what our good looks like? Being ever nearer to Him.

So whatever you may be going through right now, know this: He knows. And not just that, but He knows how He intends to use it all for His glory and your good. Those things are oddly one and the same, for our very purpose, the thing we were created for, is to glorify Him; and His glory is manifest in the way He causes all things to come together to draw us unto Him. He knows. He's got this. Trust Him.

Entering the Battle (Notes on Music: Part 1)

I mean that title. But before I get into it, let me tell you what I don't mean by it. I don't mean I'm looking for trouble or I'm planning to be antagonistic about all this. I don't mean I'm wanting to start some kind of debate. By nature, I am a shy, sheepish person who doesn't particularly like stirring up hornets' nests. But beneath the surface there is a fire, a burning passion that somehow can't sit still and watch all the time, and leave things the way they are. I'm aware that some of the things I have to say in upcoming posts are not going to be popular, and they might make you feel uncomfortable, or offended, or uncertain. I'm not asking you to agree with every word I say or every facet of opinion I hold regarding art or music or the music industry or even our culture. You don't have to agree with me. In fact, you don't even have to read it.

But I have to write it. I have to write it because it has been welling up inside me for so long and the dam's about to break if I try to put it off longer. I have to write it because I can't keep silent any longer, because there is a battle going on over this and because this battle I've been fighting silently for years now is surfacing, and the same God who at other times has miraculously enabled me to keep my mouth shut is now opening it. I honestly still don't feel like I'm ready for this, but perhaps I need that edge of incapability to force me to approach this humbly and not with arrogance.

Now let me explain a little more about the battle aspect. As KJ52 put it in a song, "See, the battle's for souls, and we['re] on the front lines." When it all boils down, the heart of the matter is not our music or our taste or our opinions; it's about a war that's been waging longer than any of us have been alive, and the victories in that battle take place when the God of the universe brings people from death into life. It's not about our music. But it influences our music, and music can play a role in this battle. Part of the reason this topic is so close to my heart is how influential music has been in my own story of God bringing me from death into life.

Music communicates. It does so differently than other modes of communication: it's not always as clear as writing or as straightforward as speaking. On some levels, music is its own language, conveying moods, ideas, themes, feelings, and heart-cries even when there are no words accompanying it. It serves a function, because there aren't always words, and sometimes our words need something to drive them home to the listener's heart. And music can do that.

God created music for a reason. And at the core of that reason is the same purpose He created everything else for: His glory. Because He needs stars and planets and people and all of creation testifying to his goodness to make Him feel secure in His position? No. Because He is that good. Because He is the only One worthy of such worship; nothing and no one else compares to Him, nor ever will.

If we're going to get into talking about things like love and God's glory and worship, we may need to pause here to bring up something that is at once impossible to fully explain or comprehend for our finite minds, but which is central and crucial to the why and the how of it all: the Trinity. You cannot fully explain or understand the love of God if you don't understand this truth about who He is: that He Himself sets the example of love not being self-seeking (1 Cor. 13). God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: One God. I know, on the surface it makes about as much sense as your math teacher telling you 3=1. But then again, it's not the only time the Bible defies our math textbooks: He also said that husband and wife become "one flesh" (2=1), remember?

So the moral of the story is to throw away your algebra book, because it obviously doesn't line up with what the Bible teaches, right? (Friends who are math majors--please don't stone me for saying that!) Of course not. The Bible is full of math. The point here both is and isn't the math. It is, because the Trinity (and marriage, for that matter) stands out as a stark reminder to us that our God is much, much bigger and greater than we will ever be able to fully know. That's why He's God, and we're not. I for one don't have the capacity to keep the earth spinning around the sun, hold every molecule together, and orchestrate the events and interwoven stories and struggles of every person on this earth in this moment. I can't even fully grasp all that He is at work in, from sunsets to flowers to providing birds with food to eat.

Back to the Trinity: this is the epitome of love that seeks another's gain. The Father, Son, and Spirit have been in constant unity and fellowship since before time began. The Father's love for the Son and the Spirit, the Son's love for the Spirit and the Father, the Spirit's love for the Father and the Son...who can adequately describe it? See, God's not after His own glory for the sake of making a name for Himself; His Name already stood, unshakably and undeniably, long before He made anything to testify of it. Everything that exists finds its purpose in proclaiming His glory, because He is more glorious than even all creation's worship can proclaim. He is greater than all we see, all we have seen, all we ever will.

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen." 

-Romans 11:36

This is at the heart of the battle that started when a created being who was not worthy of such worship, tried to claim God's glory as his own. Captivated by his own light, he rebelled against its Source: the One who had made him and given him everything he was, everything he had, everything he was now trying to elevate above his Maker. Lucifer fell, along with all who followed him. And the story could have ended there, before this world knew the sting of death and the pain of sin. But there was a greater glory that would not have been seen or known or even guessed at, had God stomped out Satan when he first rebelled. As Switchfoot put it, "The shadow proves the sunshine." The darkness is itself evidence of the light's existence, and that there is something standing between that light and the patch of ground that's shaded. But darkness always loses out to the light. 

There was a greater glory to be displayed in our God's faithfulness to people who also rebelled against Him, who ran from Him, who failed time and again (ahem, still do) to see and sing of His glory. He has proven Himself stronger than our darkness in His ability to call us "into His marvelous light," so that we may proclaim His greatness and His glory. 

The greater glory is known as the Gospel. The good news. The fulfilled promise, that our God did not leave us as orphans, that He did not leave us broken, empty, chasing the tails of our own glory. This is the fulfillment of what we were created for: to know and to sing of the glory of the One who made us. The greater-ness of our God, who overcomes everything that would stand between Him and accomplishing His purposes in this earth to display the greater glory.

And this is the battle. And music plays a part. In the posts that follow this one, I'm not going to claim what all music should or should not look like. But I'm also not going to pull any punches and say that "art for art's sake" is okay. The purpose of our music, just like the purpose of our lives, should be the praise of His glory. And there's not one set way to do that. But we'll get into all that at a later date. =) For now, I leave you with this song to ponder how much bigger our God is than we will ever fully understand.