This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of the relentless love of God. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs
This Is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham
Deliver Me by David Crowder* Band
Heart Won't Stop by John Mark McMillan
How They Fit In:
There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.
Come Thou Fount: We sang this song for two main reasons: First, outside of our theme, it puts words into our mouths to call upon God to meet us in worship (God by no means conjured by us, but this is a way to express that we are open to meeting God and that we desire that God would teach us how to worship better). The second reason, in light of our theme, was the final stanza: Though we are prone to wander, the love of God does not abandon us.
This Is Amazing Grace: We sang this song to reflect on God's grace and mercy in what Jesus did for us. Though God was by no means obligated to save us, Christ died for us. This is a surprising love that goes against what one might consider fair or just.
Deliver Me: We sang this song to proclaim that this God who is love is able to deliver us from the depths of our depression, our anger, and the false versions of ourselves that we present to the world to feel accepted.
Heart Won't Stop: This song uses language from Psalm 139 to talk about the fact that the love of God pursues us despite all of our failures, and all of our conditions. One line, "I could lay my head in Sheol, I could make my bed at the bottom of the darkness deep, but there is not a place I could escape You," is pulled almost verbatim from Psalm 139, and it's profound: Sheol, while not necessarily the same as our concept of Hell, was the closest equivalent idea that they had in the Hebrew mind. What kind of love is this, that continues to pursue even one who has not only laid down in hell, but "made a bed" in the deepest points of darkness? It is nothing less than relentless.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art last week: This song traces the works of God that are evident through creation, the story of Jesus, and the hope of the resurrection, and declares God to be Great. There is language sprinkled throughout this song--experiencing "awesome wonder" in observing the universe, scarcely being able to take in the sacrifice of Jesus, our hearts one day being filled with joy in the resurrection--that extends to us a chance to reflect upon God in terms that are anything but numb, and to reawaken within us an understanding of just how glorious God is.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM