Help!

All Of My Help Cometh From The Lord!

I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help,

My help cometh from the Lord,

The Lord which made heaven and earth,

He said, He will not suffer thy foot, thy foot to be moved,

The Lord which keepeth thee, He will not slumber nor sleep,

For the Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade,

Upon thine right hand, upon thine right hand,

For the sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night,

He shall preserve thine soul even forever more,

My help, My help, My help,

All of my help cometh from the Lord!

- Psalm 121 (not just a song, but a Bible verse!)

I remember a time I wrote lyrics.

I wrote the lyrics of the songs I enjoyed growing up. I wrote them down in a book. I still have that book.

Music has always served as more than just a solace for me. It has always been a conversation. A conversation I initially didn’t believe could happen because I saw myself unclean and unfit, but it did happen, because nothing can truly separate us from the love of God, not even sin. Romans 8:31-39 (finding this scripture online blows my mind as I write this, I was just thinking what scripture can I lean on right now and this song led me to this scripture. My God! There is truly none like you, in the heavens, underneath the heavens, on the earth, and underneath the earth!)

Where was I? (paused to get the scripture and that warm hug from God)

Oh Yes!

Music was always a dialogue for me. (It still is actually. Now, it’s more of a deeper dialogue, with a deeper knowing).

Back then, He would ask in the calmest and warmest voice:

“Why are you singing this?”

Never from a place of you’re not supposed to sing this, but from a place of needing me to understand and pay more attention to the lyrics of the songs I was singing. To pay more attention to the ‘why’.

I sang Demi Lovato with so much passion, and I knew within me, so deep, I couldn’t explain it, that she was hurt and maybe broken. I would cry after some of her songs, then pray for her, then wonder why also.

But it has always been the lyrics. They became that place for me. That place we would meet. He and I. I would listen to the songs more than twice and be so lost in the words and the meaning behind the words.

I felt songs deeply. Songs is where He found me. Songs is where He bared my soul to me. Songs is where He introduced me to me, and Himself to me. And it didn’t matter the song or the artist or the genre. God had chased after me for so long and found our meeting ground and nothing, not the artist, the type of song, the genre, the devil, people, society and their labels and boxes, not even me, could stand between His love for me and His reach for me.

Just now, I woke up from a nap and just felt sad.

“What is it all for?” I asked Him.

“What exactly am I doing?”

“What’s The Big Picture?”

A song came to my spirit. My heart. My soul. My body. All of me perceived and received it and its lyrics. And I heard it in two versions. The one by Donnie McClurkin, and the one by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

This song.

He and I have matured since we started listening to music. Strangely enough, I don’t listen to Demi Lovato again. That’s not to say she sings ‘bad’ songs. Not really one to clamour for things that I believe are not explicitly stated in the Bible. (this requires a deeper explanation, but not in this piece). That’s not also stating that her songs are ‘good’ also.

What exactly is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’?

All I know for sure is God is good! Allow Him direct you on things that are all good, because only the Creator of the earth, who is good personified, can tell you without a doubt what is good.

What was I saying again?

Focus, Ruth. Sorry, loll!

I don’t listen to Demi Lovato because of maturity. Finding me in songs was His strategy. The goal was to find me period! And that’s what He did. He found me. He made me realize that I had been found. He taught me. He nurtured me. I am maturing in Him, and so, my taste in music and every other thing matures too.

Growth in God requires a shift, and there’s a deep understanding behind that shift. I believe it is deeply personal. Nobody can truly give you that but Him. Now, I understand why I listened and sang those songs all those years ago. Why I needed them back then. Why I don’t need them any longer.

Now, all I need is Him. So every time I have moments like this. Just like the song reads, I look to God and God alone. Not music, not songs, not people, not anything else, but Him. Because He found me all those years ago knowing I needed Him, not anything else, and in the darkness, the one I was in unknowingly, He lighted my path straight to Him and I have found no reason to go back. (Ps. cause I know some people missed it. The darkness was not knowing Him, a hole, an abyss, not the songs I listened to, or the music. That was where I went to, to seek solace, instead of Him).