January 2012 – David Andrew

January 22, 2012

Memorials

So this is perhaps one of the coolest things I’ve come across in the last year!

Moleskin Staves — Pocket-sized notebook...

But this isn’t just any pocket-sized notebook… open it up and you find…

Five-line staff paper!!!!! This is a musical notation heaven! A friend at school had this notebook and offered it to me knowing that I might appreciate it as a music major. I do, in fact, appreciate it. Actually, I adore it. Now, whenever inspiration strikes me with an awesome melody, I can jot it down quickly to notate on my computer later! This is probably the best thing since apple pie.

There’s something deeper though that I would like to point out: it has to do with remembering. I love notating music because not only do I not have the money to immediately invest in all of the equipment I need to record at my leisure, but because notation offers a way to memorialize music and gives others the freedom to explore someone else’s musical idea and build upon it. Ah, there it is: memorials.

Notation is a type of memorial. It helps us to recall a melody. In the same way, writing helps us to recall thought processes and experiences. I think that God likes memorials. When He shows Himself faithful to keep His promises to us, we should make memorials to remember His faithfulness. Memorials of God’s faithfulness help us to not only remember what He’s done, but also to share that experience with others so that they can then have the boldness to seek out their own experiences with God in relation to His promises.

With that in mind, let me share with you a recent memorial that I have made. It’s about surrendering to God’s authority over every part of our lives. I recently came to the realization that I was addicted to the feeling of sorrow. I actually subconsciously enjoyed the sensation of feeling bad. It didn’t make sense. In one breath I would be claiming the joy of the Lord as my strength and in the next I would continue to wallow in my past hurt. Of course, as a believer, it is most certainly true that the joy of the Lord is my strength, but if I refuse to give Him my hurt and sorrow, then I prevent the power of God from working in my life. I don’t want to be the one standing in the way of God’s miracles.

So, after coming to this realization, I wrote a song about it. A song expressing my soul cry to recognize Jesus Christ as the God of my sorrow (as in “God over” or “in authority, in charge over”). He is not just the God of my joy, He is the God of my sorrow too. He is Lord over the entirety of my life, but since sorrow is an area I’m learning to let go of, it is particularly meaningful for me to recognize Him as God of my sorrow. I have since notated the melody as a memorial—a memorial to remember the song, but more importantly to remember what He has done in my life. This is the power of memorials.

P.S. If you play piano, here’s the fully notated score for you to enjoy. 🙂
God Of My Sorrow

January 13, 2012

Bitterness

Supplant the plant of bitterness,
Secured in all its stubbornness,
The rally cry: “Uproot! Uproot!”
Incinerate the bitter fruit.

This mighty root we now assail,
Against the dust we will prevail,
The battle cry: “Return! Return!”
Drink water from your own cistern.

Direct your introspective gaze,
Reflect upon your numbered days,
The primal cry: “Renew! Renew!”
No longer do I bow to you!

Let now the victory unfold,
We all, as jars of clay, do hold
The Spirit cry: “Fulfill! Fulfill!”
Be present with us ever still!

January 4, 2012

Knowledge

How limited is my view of God!

As of late, I’ve been wrestling with questions about direction in life and letting go of my conceptions of what God’s blessing on my life should look like, and it’s only now that I’m realizing that I have such little experience of God’s power or His glory or His love. I’m only now realizing that I struggle to trust Him with every part of me because I haven’t come into the knowledge of His love for every part of me. I find myself right back where I started when I began questioning in the first place: “Fill me with the knowledge of You, God, with the knowledge of the holy!”

January 3, 2012

Recall

It all started with waking up. The threads of consciousness, woven and spun into the glory fall, worked their way into me, seeping into the dreams lingering in my mind yet being steadily dispelled by the constancy of activity in the physical domain. Stillness.

I had a thought upon waking up, profound and personally meaningful. Yet the wording and phrasing of the thought escaped the frail grasp of my groggy brain leaving nothing but the impression of a feeling—one of longing and hope but forever more ineffably gone. What’s worse: I was at my laptop with a blank page ready to scribe these musings, yet the words had left.

So here I am, writing what remains of the experience: can I piece together the thoughts leading up to the particular idea? Can I trace my feelings back to their origin?

No; it’s hopeless.

Why does the subconscious taunt me so? Is there a greater good to be realized from the loss of this thought?

Perhaps. The feeling of hope that lingered: this is worth treasuring. This feeling is worth storing up in my heart. The more hope I store in my heart, the more I will speak and act out of hope. The more I speak and act out of hope, the more others around me will be encouraged to do the same. So then, if I change my approach to life based on this positive feeling, then I have been affected by the original idea, even though I cannot understand it, nor express it to another person. I have felt the idea and that’s all I need in order for me to act on it. Maybe soon I will find again the words to phrase it to another, but for now, it remains alive and un-cheapened by the confines of verbal expression. I recall the substance of my idea, unfettered in my spirit. Though I cannot explain the thing that gives me hope, I know that I have it. I hold this hope as in a jar of clay, and the darkness of my mind has not understood it. Thank God that I am being renewed inwardly day by day.

Perhaps my encounter this morning was not with an idea at all, but with the very Spirit of God. Perhaps I awoke not to my own thought, but to the Hope of Glory living in me, strengthening my spirit. Praise the LORD, O my soul!