Driving home from Texas last Sunday, we listened to the Sunday Praise show on the Sirius XM channel The Message. It was a long drive, and we heard a whole bunch of songs, new and old, including some we hadn't heard in years. So this morning, when I woke up with a snippet of a praise song in my head, I figured it was one from that morning's show.
I wanted to get past the snippet and hear the whole song, so I googled the lyrics I had in my head. The problem with that approach is that the only words I could remember were, "Your love endures forever." If you follow the praise genre, you know that these words are in many, many songs. I got long lists of songs, but none of them were the one in my head.
The voice singing in my head had a British accent, so I tried googling British Christian artists. Too many choices. Since we'd heard so many songs from different decades, I tried narrowing the search to songs from the 90's or 2000's. Still too many.
My frustration with this fruitless search got me thinking about how many praise songs have similar lyrics. Are we stuck using the same words over and over? Do we need better variety in our songwriting? Maybe.
The funny thing...ironically...is that the words I could remember from that song are one of the most common praise refrains in the Bible. These words are in many of the psalms, and Psalm 136 uses this phrase in every other verse. It's the beginning statement of Psalms 106, 107, 118, to name a few: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever." And it's the song the priests sang when Israel went to battle (E.g. 2 Chronicles 20:21) and when they made progress rebuilding the temple (Ezra 3:11). So it's not surprising that we are still singing these words of praise.
Thankfully, I figured out another snippet of the lyrics. "Great are your perfect ways." Finally, something different enough to narrow down the search. I was right about the artist being British, but totally wrong about the decade and the name of the artist. The song is from this year, 2022, and although one of the voices is Matt Redman, the group is ICF Worship, the music of the International Christian Fellowship churches in Europe. It's called "When the World is Changing." Here's the song:
Somewhat ironically, the message of the song is that the world is always changing, but God stays the same. God's love does stay the same. So maybe it's not so surprising that our songs of praise are so often similar. The styles of music change, the artists change, the instruments change, but God's love doesn't change. God's love endures forever.
Thanks, God!
I do wonder, though, if we were to be more specific about our praises, what we might praise God for? What has God done in your life lately that makes your heart sing?
I'm thankful for finding that my heart rejoices in praising God through art. I'm drawing more lately, and getting past the critical voice in my head that tells me it's dumb and not very good. It's good enough for me, and good enough for God, and that's what matters.
Thanks, God.
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