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Sunday 13 September 2009

Made Me Glad - Miriam Webster - Christians Singing Lies?

Back in April 2009 I blogged about a song by Miriam Webster (plays music automatically when you visit the site) called 'Made Me Glad'. You can visit her page about how the song came about here - it's worth it just to see the picture of the piano in the sea!



I still think this song is fantastic and it's great to see that Miriam is releasing her album, entitled 'Made Me Glad' very soon - the release date is 9th October 2009 here in the UK.

I've often heard the phrase "Christians don't tell lies, they just sing them" and "Christians sing promises they can't keep" but i'm not sure I always agree with this. I tried to explain my view on this by posting a comment in response to a blog on He Must Increase. I don't think I did a great job of getting my point across though.

'Made Me Glad' is another song that could be interpreted as singing lies and making impossible promises. For example:

I will bless the Lord forever (Really?)
I will trust Him at all times (Will you really?)
He has delivered me from all fear (Has He?)
He has set my feet upon a rock
And I will not be moved (What, never?)
And I'll say of the Lord

Whom have I in heaven but you
And there's none I desire beside you  (Really?)

The comments in brackets are what people who claim that 'Christians sing lies' and 'make promises they can't keep' could possibly be thinking. I approach songs like this from a different angle, from a 'faith' perspective:

God...calls things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

And without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6)

So, if we're singing from a faith perspective I think it's fine, in fact necessary, to sing promises and statements that we aspire to and take hold of 'by faith'. It's as if by singing what we want to believe to be true, God takes that faith and makes it more of a reality in our lives. More than if we only ever sing about where we are currently at in the natural - i.e. we could sing words like:

I will try to bless you Lord at all times

or

I wish there were none that I desire besides you

I would argue that this isn't singing in faith but only approaching God with our natural being. Let's be people of faith, who call things that are not as though they were. It's similar to "counting ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11) but i'll leave that one for another blog!

8 comments:

  1. Phil, I think that people forget that all of us say or sing things that we really mean in our hearts, but have a hard time fulfilling in the natural realm. I would argue that even with something as accepted as the national pledge of allegiance we are making a statement of faith. In the US and Canada we swear to support our country, bascially no matter what, but if someone was pointing a gun to our heads, would we all refuse to recant?

    Love songs often use poetic language to express undying love: I'll swim the largest sea, climb the highest mountain, etc. We mean it in our heart, but it can't always be lived out.

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  2. Good points Rick - thanks for the comment.

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  3. Last night in church we did the song "I could sing of your love forever" and we sang the whole song during practice, but then during the service we dropped the bridge because of the line "they will dance with joy like we're dancing now" because no one was dancing...

    in a sense i get what people mean by the "singing lies" thing, but as the worship leader pointed out to us during practice, it's not about the physical dancing (which is cool when it happens) but more an inner dancing...my desire to dance for joy...my heart dancing to the sound of his voice

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  4. It's kind of like when I first started meditating on the psalms. Started with Psalm 23. Couldn't really believe it, but decided to speak it out anyway, just because it was God's word, and hope that I would catch the spirit of the Psalmist as I did that.

    Made Me Glad is one of my favourite songs, because it is full of quotes from the psalms. If I had to teach a group of new believers worship songs, this would be in my top ten.

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  5. Romans 4:17 is a verse I find a lot of people have trouble applying to their own lives. Faith thinking (and preaching) often seems to 'irk' people because it relies on God not us...and isn't that what this whole post, indeed - life as a Christian - is about ?

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  6. The truth is that He has fully accomplished all He set out to do at the cross. I don't think I go to far to say that every doubt of what God has done is a lie and that those questioning the "coming of the sons of God into their own" are deceived.

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  7. Not to say that they won't know the truth when they hear it! It's the song written on every heart. He has come!! Thanks for this post!

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  8. you have embeled nice song.i like this.i wana its full version.

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