Prayer and David Crowder Promises

(from Eric)

I really like David Crowder.  For one, if he hadn't created the genre of bluegrass-techno, I'm not at all convinced that someone else would have done so.  And we are certainly better off for it.  Plus, his giant beard was way ahead of its time.

But today, listening to his music, I realized what I like the most.  Promises.  He sings about God's promises, and the bigger and brasher the better.  The promise that I, personally and individually, will be saved is a glorious one, far more glorious than I could ever hope to merit.

"Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal."

Now, that's a promise on a whole different scale.  I want to believe it.  And then I think of friends struggling with the same old thing for the 4th decade.  I think of patients cut down with some awful diagnosis way too early in life.  And, most significantly these days, I think of the lovely land of Burundi, and the wonderful people there whose pains and uncertainties and fears stretch back generations.

"Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal."

That's nice, but let's get practical.

"Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save."

That sounds like the same thing, but that's no bearded songster with an affection for banjos.  That's Isaiah 59.  That's why David Crowder can sing what he does.  Seven or eight years ago, he sang another one:  

"Everything will change.  Things will never be the same."

And yet sometimes it feels like nothing substantial will ever change, and that basically, things will always be the same.  The fears and the doubts will still be there.

"I am making all things new."

"All things," Jesus says.  Could there be any promise bolder than that?  Can we believe that?  Yes.  Sort of.  A little bit.  Sometimes.  In those rare moments when everything is lining up really well.

And that's the point of a promise.  To give us an anchor.  Something to hold onto while storms rage.  When we are filled with doubts.  Somewhere in the Sonship course, the comment was made that sometimes you have to start singing the song to really believe it.  Sometimes, when we embrace something, when we step out on it, we find that we understand it a bit more deeply than we did before.  It's maybe the difference between knowing about something, and knowing something by experiencing it.  And something like that is what Christians are called to do when they are called to be people of "faith".

Prayer is helplessness.  (according to O. Hallesby)  We come to God over and over again with all the things that we cannot do.  With the problems that don't go away, within us, without us, among us.  Everywhere.  We lay them at his feet.  We commit them to him.  We don't have solutions.  But if we are coming, then we are, in a sense, holding to the promises.  We are people of faith.  Maybe not always faith that things will go a certain way.  But faith that the promise-maker is strong.  He is sure. And he is loving.  He has shown us that, once and for all, in the life and work of Jesus.  So, let us sing the song.