I love music so much!
I can't really explain it. It is art. It’s a form of expression. Music for me has always been deep. It has always had such a huge significance in my life.
Trust my Heavenly Father to already know this. He knows me so much it makes me melt in wonder all the time. So what did He do? He began to speak to me through music. Any and every music.
God cares so much about the soul of every man. Matthew 16, from verse 24, the beginning part, KJV (one of the Bible versions) says “….If any man will come after me, let him deny himself….” But it’s verse 26 that hits the nail on the head. This is Jesus Christ speaking by the way, NLT (another version of the Bible, one of my favourites), “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”
Some say the soul, sometimes referred to as the spirit, life, heart of man, is the core of a man. It’s the life of man. God cares about our souls more than we ever could. In fact, we don’t fully comprehend the weight of our souls. So who better to know how to save it than God. There’s nothing, no one, no spirit, not on the earth, under the earth, nor above it, that can stop God from going after a soul. Nothing.
I think we sometimes assume God is too delicate. Like He can't be found in some places, but I believe the Creator of the world can be found everywhere and in everything. He is boundless and limitless. He is pure and He is clean and I promise you there's no darkness, no filth that can corrupt Him nor stain Him. Most importantly, prevent Him from going after a soul.
🎶There’s no mountain He won’t climb up, shadow He won’t light up, coming after me….🎶 - Reckless Love by Hillsong
Yes there are environments that cause the manifestation of God’s presence in such a ‘heaven on earth, signs and wonders’ way, what we would call a move of God, but God isn't afraid of the darkness. That’s not the only environment He can find people. He literally steps into darkness and brings people out all the time. What He is capable of doing is far beyond what we can ever imagine.
God can go to the depths of Sheol and bring out the soul of Jonah. He can pierce through every darkness! Every darkness! There's nowhere darkness can hide and thrive that light cannot enter and illuminate.
I read a book where a woman was tormented by demons to the point where they led her to kill her newborn. When Jesus eventually stepped into her life, (after making the decision to let Him in), the demons disappeared! They literally fled. The way the author described it, I tell you, INSTANT!
Immediately the demons left, there was silence, and then peace. And all that happened, as the book described, was He appeared, and He came as light, because He is light, THE LIGHT. For the first time in so long, she was not tormented anymore. And she saw Him. She saw Jesus. She saw Light. His light. It was a fictional story but it was realer than my phone in my hands right now.
I saw another instance, this wasn't fiction. In a book I read growing up. Also tormented by demons, and in that darkness, in the thick of the darkness surrounding him, He sees light, and the silhouette of a man in the darkness reaching His hand to him. He takes that hand and the darkness instantly vanishes. Instantly.
Always Instant!
Back to music. God found me in all the songs I listened to growing up. My environment growing up was saturated by God and His presence and I recognize that. My father had CDs and even cassettes of gospel music of every genre and so my foundation when it comes to music is God. So when I started listening to songs from the world, that didn’t deter God, because He was already in my life. I had already accepted Him as my saviour at a very young age.
And He never left me. Not once. Instead….What did He do? He began to speak to me through every song I listened to.
Growing up, I had little knowledge of my faith, compared to knowledge He has helped me acquire now, and so I didn't understand a great deal of things. Of course God knew. So it was from a place of ignorance I accepted songs from the world. They were relatable but still lies. They made sense but weren't the truth.
And in those relatable lies that made sense and realistically could be termed as truths, but from a limited knowledge standpoint, God found me. He spoke to me.
I'm passionate about music and lyrics and songs and the meaning behind them. And that's why I get really invested when arguing it I guess😂. Really determined to get people to see, and understand.
I'm trying to find the right way to articulate the truth God is showing me so it's still all over the place. I apologise. But yeah, God used music to teach me about Him and truth.
He asked me questions. We dissected the lyrics of my favourite songs. We looked for the truths and lies in the words.
I've never been a fan of profane lyrics, so I didn't listen to every song, but my tastes were and still are diverse, so I enjoyed every genre of music including trap and rap, but I connected more with songs that had a message, whatever message it was, and made sense.
So to a large extent, I know songs.
One of the questions He asked me was why I listened to certain songs and artists. Not that there was anything wrong with the artists, but there’s a level of awareness you attain that you know, with clarity, why you do certain things and you actually have reasons, no matter what it is.
And for some, what I found was that I listened to them, songs and artists, because of people. To feel a part of my peers. To know what everyone around me knew. To not feel left out. But these weren't my go to songs. In fact I didn't even listen to them on my own.
I unconsciously realised this, I say unconsciously because I was aware but not to the depth of fully understanding yet. And so, for some of these songs, I took them out of my library because they weren't me, but I did listen to them when amongst these peers.
But I had my favourite songs, songs that were more me, and I realised only a few people knew about them, and my reasons for listening to them were deeper and more personal. So many things to say here, but then God began to help me be comfortable and content with being me and accepting that not everyone would relate and understand and it was fine. But this is me, and this is my ‘why’. I needed to know and understand that. This is what I mean when I say God found me in my darkness and began to shed light in every area, bringing truth in every area.
Everything we do is interconnected. No action is independent. We do a lot of things, and sometimes for the one core reason alone. So what does God do for a person? He begins to reveal this core reason. He begins to shed His light on these areas of our lives. He helps us find The Truth to these areas. He breaks us down to a place of vulnerability and truth that we begin to figure out our ‘why’. At least, that's what He did for me.
God isn't too scared to step into our dark areas and light them up. So people listen to certain songs, my immediate response isn't a don't listen to these songs it's wrong, because that wasn't the approach the Holy Spirit used with me.
No. My immediate response is why? Why are these your favourite songs?
Why do you like/love music?
What does it do for you?
What does it do to you?
It took yeaarrrssss (I have to emphasise this) for my entire library to change. In the past, I'd delete every song in my library and re-download them almost immediately. Trying to get rid of ‘secular’ songs and fill my library with just ‘christian’ songs, but it never worked. Because I hadn't dealt with my ‘why’. I hadn't allowed God into that place fully to expose what needed to be exposed to completely be free, not from the songs, but the actual darkness.
Without God, there is always darkness. And the darkness isn’t actually as we know it, but ignorance. A lack of knowing a specific truth. The Truth. John 8:32. There’s a knowing of The Truth that truly sets free.
I thought I had to do it on my own. He was already working in me, on my behalf, and with little to no knowledge I tried to fix it on my own, but it never worked. Because the work God does in us is a process. A process of coming to the knowledge, and revelation of The Truth.
He wants us to know and understand. So we can make informed decisions. So we choose Him for a reason. We don't just choose Him because everyone else says we should, we know what can be found in Him and in the world and we still choose Him because we know He is truth and He is real and He is by far better.
And what a lot of people don’t realise is, with God, you don’t have to part with anything. It’s not either Him or something else, choose, not in that sense. But Him, and knowledge, and revelation, and TRUTH! A knowing. Then a decision!
