Refreshed

Tonight I was feeling empty.

I wanted, in that just-get-started-and-once-you-get-going-it'll-be-fun way, to do some choreography, but I wasn't really feeling it.

I felt completely lifeless inside. Like there was no emotion, no soul, nothing.

Is that not the most frightening feeling in the world? That there is this moment to seize and to enjoy and to make the most of because you will never have this moment again, and you just don't care, however much you want to?

With some reluctance, I brought up the iTunes window (it never even gets closed anymore) and began to scroll rather halfheartedly through the album artwork, waiting for something to catch my attention.

What song could possibly wake me up, clear my head, snap me out of this funk?

Then I remembered a post the Kid In The Front Row made the other day, asking music-type questions of the readership (he does it a lot -- gets the readers involved, listens to their opinions. I like that). Naturally, I gave a lot of thought to it before putting in my two cents and letting the snapshot of my musical tastes of the moment be taken.

One of the questions was something along the lines of What song brightens your day when you're down? or something to that effect.

I had answered with Farrell & Farrell's People In A Box (because, let's face it, that song is so charmingly dated it can't help but make you smile). I had also mentioned Petra's Adonai.

Well... I hadn't heard People In A Box in a couple of weeks. I scrolled to it and began to play.

Then I thought, heck, why not listen to the other Farrell & Farrell song I have? And the one that Bob Farrell wrote with DeGarmo & Key that I've really been liking lately?

So I listened to the other two as well.

Hosanna Gloria and Let The Whole World Sing.

(If you liked Adonai, you will totally love these two. Unfortunately, the latter is not to be had on the iTunes Store and is only available on YouTube as a part of a live medley.)

Both are beautiful songs. The message and the passion with which it's presented smoothed out my paranoia to the point of invisibility and totally relaxed me. God is great, He is glorious, He is worthy to be praised. There is nothing to fear.

I can now tell you first-hand if you are a Christian artist and you are striving to glorify God in all you do, then your work is not in vain. It can uplift a fellow brother or sister when they need it, showing them that God is still in control, and He is still glorious. Keep singing, keep writing, keep dancing for the glory of God. He can use it even twenty-five years later in a little bedroom in rural Alberta at one in the morning to remind a frightened lagging spirit that God is still there for them to praise.

And now I'm listening to Newsboys -- Presence (My Heart's Desire); He Reigns; You Are My King (Amazing Love); and Take My Hands (Praises).


All of my life
I looked for the reason You created me
Now I realise I was given just
To sing a song of praise to Thee...

-- DeGarmo & Key, Let The Whole World Sing
(from Mission Of Mercy, Power Discs, 1983)