Kindling
I’ve always found the closing statement of John’s Gospel to be so beautiful:
John 21:25 “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.”
It’s beautiful, but it’s also disturbing and overwhelming to me as a songwriter - as someone who puts a lot of effort into chronicling the things Jesus has done. Each of us plays a part in creatively keeping records so that people can hear about Jesus, but with so many entries in this great catalogue, how can my work stand out?
(I know this is a selfish, maybe even narcissistic dilemma, but just let me get the whole thing out).
George MacDonald was a Scottish author in the late 1800’s who delivered a message that has resonated with me for a few years now. He spoke of a perspective unique to every person who ever has and ever will exist.
“In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is the innermost chamber—but a chamber into which no brother, nay, no sister can come. From this it follows that there is a chamber also—(O God, humble and accept my speech)—a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man,—out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.”
So, if there truly is a chamber within God Himself that no one can enter except me, I have come under conviction to believe I have a responsibility to share what I’ve learned in that chamber with everyone who hasn’t been there (ie: everyone else).
Not only does my work have to compete with the creatives who are trained to articulate God’s works poetically; I must also stand out amongst the throngs of races, cultures, even generations so that my voice might be among the loudest.
OR…
I can accept that my life’s work might be a thread of hay in a stack so large no barn could contain it. A thread that might never be used for anything more than kindling in a fire of passion for God in the heart of a brother or sister, who can’t identify every component of their fire’s fury, but with a fury burning fiercely from all the fuel it consumes.
“Could we with ink the oceans fill, and were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”
- Frederick Lehman