In.Motion

This is a long one, but try and track with me.

I’ve been milling through some stuff for awhile. Its been pretty neat to see how I’ve changed how I’ve written songs over the years. I still have the first note book that I ever tried to write a song in. There are a few in there that are full of wanting to badly to have a good song or to just express how upset I was with how my life was at the time. Truth be told, my life was never bad at all growing up, so the whole angst thing was just me trying to be cool. Angst aside, I can remember trying to hard to write songs and trying to be profound or deep. They all ended up sounding like I was trying real hard to sound deep and profound. Strange, huh?

Then, I went through a phase, which to be honest will be with me for the rest of my life, where I wrote nothing but love songs or songs about relationships. Whenever I would play with melodies or anything, those were just the words and things on my mind, so that’s kinda what came out. There are a few that I still enjoy and some I look back on and wonder how I could say some of these things about where I was at the time.

I guess that’s the cool thing about music; No matter who writes a song or how it was written, it is all about how a person receives the song. Whenever someone hears a song, they bring all their connotations with the chord progressions, or phrases, or melodies, etc. You may write a song about a dumb relationship that is going nowhere when you were 15, but someone else could hear that song and it be exactly what they are feeling with their loved one. We all interpret and receive songs differently, and that’s the beauty and curse of music. You can do your best to try and explain a song or try to talk about the context of a song to allow people to see what you see with a song, but it ultimately comes down to what sticks with that person. But I digress . . .

Now, for the past few years, since senior year of high school maybe, I’ve just started writing what comes. I write out of a place where I go with what is on my heart. I don’t push it, I don’t try real hard. If I get through half a song, and it stops flowing, I put it down and come back to it. I want what I write to be genuine and not a hyper structured or artificially forced kind of song. You can feel when someone has tried to put too much stress on a song to come together. I write from what I feel God is teaching me and from what I’m feeling. Things I’ve been through and things I can’t get my mind off of.

There’s a song I’ve been working on for awhile that I wanted to share with you guys. Its always really weird and awkward when you share songs with people who don’t know you real well when it comes to music. There’s always a stress for you to like it or to be super complimentary or whatever. I’ve always been horrible with taking compliments, so good thing that’s not the motive. I just want to share something with you guys that I’ve been working on and that’s been on my heart for a while.

Duane and a few of us were going through Psalm 51 a little while ago. This passage absolutely wrecked me. It’s all about how God doesn’t want our sacrifices and our actions when it’s only to come across as a follower or to appease some kind of half-hearted standard we have set for ourselves. Its about how we come back to God as broken people when we fall, and time and time again he opens our mouths and hearts to sing praise back to Him. I invite you to check out the words and to read the passage and check out the context (David and Bathsheba). Allow these words to wash over yourself and ask yourself, “What is in my way from being able to turn to God and admit my need for His grace and mercy?”

V.1
Have mercy on me, O God
Because of Your grace and love
I’ve sinned against You, only You
So I run to Your feet, crying make me clean
Make me pure again

V.2
You sit on the throne, O Lord
You are righteous and just, Holy One
Let the bones you broke rejoice
I feel far away, but You’re always so near
Restore Your joy to me

C.
Open my lips and I will sing Your praise
Offer all my days to You, Matchless King
Not sacrifice, You ask for something more
I come with heart adoring, for You Matchless King

V.3
I try to hide my heart from You
Because I’m ashamed of my ways
I live to impress, but not for You
You’ve broken my chains, declared me free
Restore Your joy to me

B.
I would give You the world
But you want my heart instead
I give you my heart, broken and redeemed
Its all for You

One.Love

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