If you’ve been following along with our 31 Days of Worship and Music series, I welcome you back. If you’re new here, I would encourage you to check back with some of the previous posts in the series – but it’s not required. I have intentionally planned the series so that each day’s message builds on those before, but so that each could also stand alone. I know how life is, and I know it’s hard to get around to reading something every day. Stop by when you can…comment when you feel led…whatever you want to do. I’m just glad you’re here, and my prayer is that God speaks to something inside you somehow while you’re here.
Over the weekends during this series, I want to highlight some of my favorite worship artists and songs. As we’ll explore later in the series (possibly next week), music is one of the most powerful ways God has given us to worship and experience Him. That has always been my experience, and I am excited to simply share lyrics, videos, stories, and artists with you that have ushered me into the presence of God. May you also be blessed by the gift of music.
When I was in college, I was a cultural Christian. I had grown up in church but little of what I heard there had taken root in my heart. I had never been very interested in the things of the church, going through the motions pretty much every Sunday of my youth. (Those who remember me from my high school years probably don’t realize it, but I really was at church every Sunday during that period. You didn’t see me, though, because I was hiding in the bathroom rather than going to Sunday School with the other kids my age. No lie.)
It wasn’t until late in my college career that God captivated me, and it wasn’t until after I graduated that I actually began my personal relationship with Him. As early as my freshman year of college, though, I remember the Lord romancing something in my heart. I had a few Christian friends then – real Christian friends…not “Christians” like I was at the time. They played Christian music in their rooms and in their cars, and one song nearly tore me apart every time I heard it. As an eighteen year old college freshman, I was in a deep, dark valley. The adjustment to college was an extraordinarily difficult one for me, in many different ways, and though I didn’t know it I was drowning. This song – Ginny Owens’ “If You Want Me To” was the life raft that held me up during that time and many subsequent hard times.
May it be a blessing to you now, whether you’re in a hard time or not. It’s a song about submission to God’s plans and God’s will, which is a message suitable for most every situation of every day. I know it’s good for me to hear often.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GocT5SAQPNM&w=420&h=315]