Sing a Song of . . .

A visited a friend’s church last Sunday night; it was a very different and very enjoyable experience. The people who gathered to worship in this church’s basement in a small rural California town sang with passion and reckless abandon, shared their lives openly and intimately with everyone there, and took the immanent stirring of God in their lives very seriously. While their service was full of joy and thankfulness, an outpouring of many of the Body’s experience with God throughout the week, I couldn’t help but think of the Biblical witness to the lives of people who are called to follow Christ. Starvation, explusion, inverted crucifixion. I couldn’t keep the words of the Psalmists out of my head, cursing their enemies. Expressing confusion. Crying out in pain and abandonment. Then I tried to think of songs the Body sings to express these emotions, and the list was very short. This, however, is my favourite. The expression of hopefull injury is something that I think could benefit many if sang from the loft and preached from the pulpit a good deal more than it is.

Come let us return
He has torn us into pieces
He has injured us
Come let us return to the Lord
He will heal us
He will bandage our wounds
In just a short time He'll restore us
In just a short time He'll restore His church
So we might live
We might live in His presence
In His presence

Oh that we might know the Lord
Oh that we might know the Lord
Oh that we might know the Lord
Let us press on to know Him
Let us press hard into Him
Then as surely as the coming of the dawn
He will respond

- Hosea; Shane Barnard