Music and Worship

I’ll feel there has been a lack of posting this week. It saddens me. I may now have something to blog about however.

As I mentioned in my last late night post I was at the Snow Patrol concert in Aberdeen on Thursday night. I was very, very excited about it and it totally lived up to my expectations. There are photos are on their website – they may show the brilliance better than I can describe it. They sang lots of great songs, old and new, and including some of my favourites Set Fire to the Third Bar and The Planets Bend Between Us but to be honest I love all their stuff. It was a really good night.

But I did feel that there was something lacking and I’ve come to a conclusion, over the course of the past twenty four hours, that music just isn’t the same when it’s not being used to worship God, or certainly, live music just isn’t the same.

There’s something about standing alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ, whom though you’ve never met before you know you have a certain connection with, and singing your heart out to God. On Thursday when the lead singer, Gary, got the audience to sing at the top of their lungs, I joined in but it just wasn’t as cool as when your shouting to God. And whilst I knew almost all the words to almost all the songs, and was able to sing along, there was no overwhelming sense of joy or peace as I did so. There was no funny knotted feeling in my stomach like I get when I just know God is moving and working in and around me. It just wasn’t the same.

And as I looked around me, at the seven thousand pluss people there,  it dawned on me that they all think that that’s as good as it gets. They think the adrenalin and the alcohol and the proximity to fame and the ridiculous volume, make for an awesome night that can be beaten by little or nothing. The reality is that worshipping God is so much more amazing!!

Do you think music is something else we’ve messed up? Have we corrupted its purpose as well? 

Whatever we’ve done to it I do think that music and an appreciation of it is something God has blessed us with. It makes us stand out on this planet, I think. And I think God loves it and wants us to use it to worship Him, whether its good old school organ stuff or new fangled indie/rock/funk -whatever. 

If only I was more musical . . .

Not getting up at 6.30am

Okay it’s quarter to midnight and I just got in from the Snow Patrol concert. It was sooooo good. Very loud, my ears are not thanking me – tinitus is awful! But it was totally worth it!! I will not, however, be getting up at 6.30am tomorrow. I’m sorry it just won’t physically happen. I’ll get up later and pray then – hope that’s okay.

Snow Patrol vs. Police

Snow Patrol

“Set Fire to the Third Bar”

I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from A to where you’d be
It’s only finger lengths that I see
I touch the place where I’d find your face
My finger in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I’ve found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I’m miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have travelled so far
We’d set the fire to the third bar
We’d share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can’t keep in

I’m miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

I’m miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
and I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms