Billie Jean

Justice

Real Love

All my little plans and schemes
Lost like some forgotten dreams
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

Just like little girls and boys
Playing with their little toys
Seems like all they really were doing
Was waiting for love

Don't need to be alone
No need to be alone

It's real love
It's real, yes it's real yes it's real love
It's real

From this moment on I know
Exactly where my life will go
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for love

Thought I'd been in love before,
But in my heart I wanted more
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

Don't need to be afraid
No need to be afraid

It's real love
Yes it's real, yes it's real love
It's real.

Laughing With

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God when the doctor calls
After some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
when it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from that party yet

No one laughs at God when their airplane
Starts to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love hand in hand
with someone else and they hope that they’re mistaken
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door
And they say “We’ve got some bad new, sir,”
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine, fire or flood

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
When the crazies say he hates us
and they get so red in the head
You think that they’re about to choke
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus

God can be so hilarious
Ha ha, ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
when they’ve lost all they got
And they don’t know what for

No one laughs at God on the day they realize
that the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re saying their goodbyes

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
When the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head
you think that they’re about to choke
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious

No one’s laughing at God in a hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor
We’re all “laughing with God”

Bat For Lashes - on KCRW

From the awesome 'Morning Becomes Eclectic' show...

The Incredible Hulk

Anger. 

It is often called 'the red mist'. For Bruce Banner it is more green than red. His muscles bulge, his face snarls, his clothes rip. He becomes the Incredible Hulk.

It seems to me there are a lot of Bruce Banners walking around today - if you make a mistake whilst driving you're likely to be met be a torrent of swearing and digit flicking - if you glance at someone a little too long you might get a 'whatchyoolookin'at?' - if you're a waitress or shop assistant barely a day goes by when you don't feel the self righteous indignation of a customer that hasn't got exactly what they wanted.

A degree of respect and politeness has dissipated from our society and it has been replaced with a bubbling anger that rests just beneath the surface of many people. It only takes an insignificant incident for the blood to boil, the eyes to redden and the bulging green muscles of the Hulk to burst forth.

In the long history of the Incredible Hulk when he becomes the Hulk out of anger alone he causes as much damage and as he does good. He is a super hero only when he can reign the anger in and focus on what needs to be done. When he simply reacts in a rage  he leaves devastation - which is why he is always pursued by the police and the army. He can only ever 'save the day' when he can get his head straight and uses his incredible strength for good.

Proverbs has a few things to say about anger:

A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. (29:11)

For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife. (30:33)

It is so easy to respond to injustice, stupidity, cruelty, selfishness, greed and all types of evil with anger. It is easy. Natural. Anyone can do that.

It is much harder to treat those things - and their perpetrators  - with love and self-control. Much harder. 

"Ah... but Jesus got angry - clearing the temple" I hear you say. 

Maybe.

Without doubt Jesus' actions resemble actions of anger - turning over tables and driving people out. Though the gospels never suggest that Jesus' motivation was anger, even a righteous anger. Also I think we would have to say that Jesus' actions were planned - it is not like He hadn't been to the Temple hundreds of times before without going crazy. 

Why was it that day did He chose to make a stand? - because it was a prophetic sign of his wider mission - the coming Kingdom clearing away a tainted and misguided religiosity. It certainly wasn't an unplanned, unintended rage that we are constantly guilty of giving in to.

Jesus said this about anger:

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment (Matt 5:22)

Anger often belies our own deeper problems - insecurity, unforgiveness, selfishness. It is a symptom of our own sense of displacement or isolation or feeling that we are peripheral characters in the theater of life. 

In Paul's famous explanation of love in 1 Corinthians 13 he states that love "...is not easily angered". And that is key - to be loving, we need to do not that which is easy, but that which is hard, making sure our reactions do not subvert our intentions.

... saying all that, the Hulk makes anger look pretty cool. Where did I leave my gamma ray machine?

dg

A Little Piece of Canaan

I am realistic. 

I am aware that I will not ever be the most well known or ‘successful’ worship leader in the world. And I’m fine with that. Actually, that kind of ministry looks like more hassle than it’s worth -  I’m sure it’s a constant mind field of mixed motivations and potential compromises. And I'm not sure I’m global-worship-leader-role-model material anyway. 

Good luck to ‘em. Or God bless them. Or both.

Although I can easily resign from that position of international celebrity, how willing am I to surrender every single last bit of recognition?

That’s does not come quite so easily.

Maybe I’d be satisfied with just being known in this country, or this region, or this network, or that conference or just from the front of my church - as long as I’m known and appreciated somewhere then I can satisfy that part of my heart that longs for the attention of man.

When Moses divided up the Promised Land, Canaan, between the 12 tribes of Israel he gave nothing to the Levites. They were allotted no territory at all. They did not get a little piece of Canaan, but they were entrusted with something much greater:

“At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.  That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as the LORD your God told them” (Deuteronomy 10:8-9)

My inheritance is the LORD. 

It is not the recognition of my church, or network or denomination or country. It is not the congratulations of my fellow man. It is not people’s appreciative gaze, nor their encouraging words.

My inheritance is the LORD.

My privilege is not a little piece of Canaan. My privilege is ‘to stand before the Lord and to pronounce blessings in his name’. My privilege is to sing for the glory of God. 

And my inheritance is the LORD

What else could I need? What else could satisfy the truest and deepest longings of my heart? What else will sustain me through all my years and into eternity?

Absolutely nothing.

Almost makes the whole awful thing worthwhile

Apparently....

Fever Ray - 'When I Grow Up'

Miike Snow - 'Sylvia'