Seven songs - Sunday Thoughts edition

Seven songs I'm currently re-playing in my head. [head in hands, shaking back and forth mournfully]

Yeah, I got tagged again! Well, considering that I haven't posted much at all this week, that's fair All right (gee, David, where DO people come up with these things?), let's see what I come up with...

Hm, it seems that I have a lot of Christian music running through my head today, so I'm going to put it all together and make it a Sunday Thoughts version of the meme. So, look below the fold and see what's been running through my brain and reminding me of the Love which surpasses all understanding!

David already mentioned David Profit singing "Lord, Have Mercy," and I really must put that at the top of my list. My old choir from Atlantic Shores Baptist Church sang this with David on Easter Sunday, 2001, if I recall correctly, and I loved it! David also sang it again when we came together in prayer after 9/11, and I cannot tell you how heartfelt that prayer was - Lord... have mercy! I am so glad that David included it on his debut album.

Lord, have mercy
For we have placed all our hopes in Thee...

I've also been "hearing" "Come Thou font of every blessing" which is an old, old beautiful hymn that is too rarely sung in church these days. I enjoy a lot of the praise and worship songs which are popular, but only the old hymns really feed my soul. When the song comes to "Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love/Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above," I am reminded of how frail and weak I can be in my faith - and how good God is to claim me for Himself.

DAVID CROWDER BAND lyrics

One of the other songs I enjoy is "A mighty fortress," particularly the version sung by the Promise Keepers Mens' Choir. Their arrangement adds a modern touch to the hymn, which I would normally abhor, but with the mens' voices and the pipe organ... *sigh* It works! Martin Luthor - and later translators - did a beautiful job setting the 46th Psalm to "modern" music, and this old hymn is a triumphant paen to the supremacy and victory of Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God's own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

Can't beat that!

Third Day, a modern Christian rock band, has a couple songs that I love off of their Offerings album. Huh. Well, actually, I pretty much love this whole album! Offerings ( <-- that link is to Amazon) is a worship album released in 2000, and it's not the floaty, ethereal sort of feel-good praise-and-worship most people might expect from a worship album. Oh, nonononono! "Saved," in particular (go on - Amazon has clips of the tunes), is good ol' Suh-th'n rock, hard driving and right to the point:

I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined
Stone-cold as I stepped out of the womb
By His grace I have been touched
By His word I have been healed
By His hand I've been delivered
By His spirit I've been sealed

The other two songs that really grab me off this album are "Agnus Dei," and "King of Glory." (And "These Thousand Hills," "Your Love Oh Lord" and.... yeah, yeah, I said I liked the whole album!) "King of Glory" begins:

Who is this King of Glory that pursues me with his love
And haunts me with each hearing of His softly spoken words
My conscience, a reminder of forgiveness that I need
Who is this King of Glory who offers it to me?

Indeed - Who is this King who pursues me down to the deepest depths of my sin, and then raises me up to join Him at His table, and richly blesses me with all good things? Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your boundless love!

Another modern Christian band is Point of Grace, who had a beautiful song titled "Who am I?" I first heard it sung at a Women of Faith conference in Seattle, WA, in... Oh, I think it was 1997. The song, off their Steady On album, is soft and quiet - very simple and lovely, and the chorus asks that tender question,

Who am I that you would love me so gently?
Who am I­ that you would recognize my name?
Lord who am I that you would speak to me so softly
Conversation with the love most high who am I

PoG's title song for that album is also very, very, appropriate for me -

We run up ahead, we lag behind you
It's hard to wait when heaven's on our mind
Teach our restless feet to walk beside you
Cause in our hearts we're already gone
Will you walk with us
Steady on

Speaking of the question, Who am I?, Casting Crowns has a song by that title, too, off their debut album - but they provide an answer:

Not because of who I am,
But because of what you've done.
Not because of what I've done,
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,(ocean)
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.
I am yours.

To round this all off, I'm going to finish with two Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir songs, "Be Glad," from their Be Glad album, and "My Help" from High & Lifted Up. The BTC loves to sing the Bible, and these two songs are wonderful examples of it. "Be Glad" is simply Psalm 118, verse 24:

This is the day the LORD has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

And they continue with their rejoicing:

Be glad in what He's done, Be glad in the victories won
Be glad in God own Son, Let us rejoice and be glad

He brought me out of the miry clay
He set my feet on a rock to stay
He put a song in my heart today

Let us rejoice, Let us rejoice
Let us rejoice, Let us rejoice and be glad

And finally, the beautiful "My Help" is Psalm 121:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills--

From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

The LORD shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

There are probably about a kazillion more songs I could mention and quote, but I think I've listed at least seven, so I think I'll stop now, LOL.

Comments

[David]

1.

Great list! Ya saw that I'd included Proffitt's "...have mercy..." in my list--been running through my head a lot, too.

And I almost included "Come, Thou Fount..." in my list. the words, with the familiar NETTLETON tune, have been running through my head off and on in recent days, as well. Especially "Here I raise mine Ebenezer/Hither by Thy help I'm come..."

Great list. Thanks!