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Tag: musicmonday (Page 2 of 8)

Say I Won’t

May 3, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Autopilot. It’s how most of us go through our lives. We get up and go through the same humdrum routine day in and day out. But there has to be more. There has to be more than just cruising through life, trapped in the prison of someone else’s dream.

We fall into autopilot when we seek something big and nothing happens. We nestle into autopilot when we compare our lives to those of someone else and feel we’ll never match up. We get stuck in autopilot when depression hits us and we just want to sleep life away.

There has to be a better way.

Today’s Music Monday is by MercyMe and it’s titled Say I Won’t. It’s a song that fights against the evils in our individual lives. The evils of what others say about us or how they treat us. The evils of being told we’re not good enough or that we’re a failure. The evils that tell us we’d be better off if we just threw in the towel and quit. And the message to all of these is I’m going to press on.

I’m going to rise above all of these. Not because I have it all together or even because I think I’m the best. I’m going to push through not because I have the strength or because I even believe I’m enough. I can do all of this because God says I’m enough. So I’m going to run and I’m going to fly.

Say I won’t. I dare you.

The message of this song is soft yet powerful. It’s a try me kind of message. Today I want you to stand in the confidence that the world can’t stop you. The people in your corner or opposed to you can’t hold you back. You will run. You will fly. You will succeed. I dare anyone to stop you when you have Jesus inside you.

Keep On Hoping

April 12, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Man, I don’t know about you but it seems like the good days aren’t quite as good lately and the bad days are seemingly a little worse. The distance between those good and bad days is growing shorter. Life just seems to be getting harder than I can remember it being.

How do we keep on going through the mess of life?

One of the most important things in life is to be careful what voices you let in your head. Be careful who you give room to occupy your thoughts. The more worry and fear and sadness take up space in your thinking, the more easily they’ll come out in your words and actions.

With all of the voices vying for space in our thinking we need to remember some pretty key things. Today’s Music Monday can help keep the main thing in the place of priority.

God is still in control. Just because you are out of control, doesn’t mean that God has lost control. Actually the opposite is very true. It’s often when we are totally and completely out of control that we are best positioned to let God do his most powerful work.

God shows up when we need him most. What if the trouble and struggle is meant to help us see when God shows up? What if God is right around the corner? What if the miracle you need right now is just a moment away? Don’t give up now! You’ll miss the best part!

Know where your strength comes from. It’s true. Whether we like it or not the truth is that God gave us life and since he gave us life, we can be certain that he will give us the strength to keep going through the challenges and struggles in life.

Check out today’s MusicMonday. It’s a song about hope. Never give up hope because God is just moments away from showing up in a big way.

When We Fall Apart

March 23, 2021 / / 0 Comments

It’s no secret, we all hit that moment in life when we just fall apart. Maybe it’s an illness or a job loss. Sometimes it’s a death in the family or a child moving on and a piece of you seems to be missing. When we hit that place when all we can do is fall to the ground and cry we need to hear someone tell us that it’s going to be ok. Maybe not today or tomorrow but it will be ok.

Today’s MusicMonday is for those of you who are swimming in the quicksand of life. It’s for those of you who can’t seem to get on top of things in life. It’s for those of you who don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table for your family. It’s for those of you who are watching your mom or dad or grandparent slowly fade from your grip and you can’t do anything about it.

There are things in life that we know we can’t change but they’re just plain hard. For the past several years I’ve watched as two of my grandparents have struggle with the debilitating illness of alzheimer’s. They didn’t know who I was or why I was there. The illness drained every bit of recognizable life out of them. Grandma breathed her last over the summer of 2020 and grandpa is still fighting.

Sometimes we laugh about the memories we’ve made but most of the time we just stare and wonder why. We wonder will this ever be ok? We watch the fight and the struggle and while I’m not really a crying kind of guy something inside me breaks as I watch one the strongest men in my life not even be able to bear his own weight anymore.

Sometimes I just want to fall apart, and one day I likely will. But for now I want you to know that falling apart isn’t bad. It’s not a sign of weakness or shame. Falling apart and losing yourself in the moments of grief and pain brings healing. If my grandma were still here she’d tell me that it’s ok to cry. She’d hold me close and remind me that one day it will make sense. She’d tell me it’s ok to hurt but on the other side of hurt is healing.

Listen to this week’s song, even though it’s a day late. Find healing in your tears. Every drop that you let go will be a flood of healing for your soul. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to fall apart.

Stayed On Him

March 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’m always on the lookout for a new song for our Music Monday posts. Some days are harder to find one I haven’t done yet while other weeks there seems to be no trouble at all. Today we’re going to look at one that kind of jumped out in a quick search for top songs for 2021. It’s called Stayed on Him. The song is built around a passage from Isaiah 26:3.

You will keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Think about how different life would be if we just let peace reign in our lives. How much different would your outlook on life be if you stepped back from the worry and fear to trust in the one who has everything under control?

The issue we face often is that we let our minds wander to things that are not of God. We focus on the pain and the shame and the hurt and the fear and the anxiety. We let worry creep in and take over our thoughts.

Today’s MusicMonday is really calling us to stay on him. Focus on the promises of God. See his presence in your life today and always. So stop what you’re doing for the next 5 minutes and let this song help bring a smile to your face and comfort to your soul.

Hurry Up And Wait

March 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

We are a driven people aren’t we? We push and pull and drive and run and force our will in our time. We like to go 100 miles an hour in life, maybe not driving because that’s dangerous but in our decisions and our push to success. We pack our schedules with very little down time. We live in the margins of life. We need to hurry up and wait!

One of my many downfalls in life is that I am a very task oriented, type A, driven person who doesn’t like to sit still and always needs a project. I seem to always need to be doing something. Whether working around the house, going on a walk, working out at the gym, going to work to get a little extra done – for me it’s just hard to stop.

But we all need downtime. And we’ll take that downtime whether we do it voluntarily and mandated to do so. For so many the pandemic has been a forced pause moment. Well at least at first many of us slowed our lives for a bit and stopped virtually all of the extra things. This allowed for more rest, more suppers with family, more walks around the neighborhood with our spouse, more movie nights with the kids, more fires on the patio. Slowing down was a great and much needed relief from the pace of life.

But we’re starting to return to a more rapid pace in life. And if we’re not careful, we’ll soon end right back where we were a couple of years ago. We’ll be running 100 mph through life and miss so many great opportunities, all because we couldn’t rest and wait.

Today’s MusicMonday is titled Hurry Up and Wait. The idea is simple. If we don’t hurry up and find rest in our day to day lives, if we don’t get out of the margins of life and live at a more managable pace then we’re going to be forced to rest in a way we don’t really like or want.

I’m not saying the pandemic was God’s doing, but I am saying that I firmly believe he has used this slowing of our pace to work some good. So hurry up and find the place and time when you can rest before it’s too late!

Help Is On The Way

March 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

When trouble hits we want help right here and right now. We don’t want to wait. We don’t want to look for our hero to come save us. We order our food expecting it to come out fast. We text someone and hope for a reply immediately. Everything about our world is immediate and expected on our timeline. We are very much an instant gratification society. Today’s MusicMonday is about knowing that help will be here just in time.

When I was in college I worked for the Honda Manufacturing plant in my hometown. I was amazed when I first toured the facility. I expected to see stacks of containers with extra parts for the cars and motorcycles they were building. I thought the factory would have had racks and racks of frames, fenders, door knobs, anything and everything needed to build these vehicles. But to my amazement there was nothing!

They didn’t have tall storage racks like you see in the pick up area of IKEA. They didn’t have stacks upon stacks of extras of anything. They operate as what’s called a just in time company. That means the parts arrive just in time to get a new batch of 60 parts to the line to keep things going.

Just in time. That’s what today’s song is all about. God shows up just in time. It might be at midnight or midday but he’ll always be there. He won’t be late and make you fall. He won’t be early to keep you from the challenges. He’ll be there. Help is on the way. But it will show up when the time is right.

Fresh Wind

March 1, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been working in my basement to make it more of a fun and livable area in our home. But one thing about a basement is that if there’s not adequate air flow and ventilation things can get a little stale and stagnant. In our home there are no air vents in the basement and no returns down there either, so the air just sits. One of the final steps I’ll take is to open up a couple of air exchange vents so that we can get some fresh air into what otherwise would be a stale air environment.

But it’s not just basements that need fresh air. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we need some fresh wind in our lives as well. We get so caught up in the way it’s been done and in the comforts of life that we kind of grow stale and stagnant. We need a fresh perspective and a new way of approaching things.

This may not be a popular opinion by any means, but I am starting to wonder if 2020 wasn’t the call for a fresh wind. I wonder if God didn’t see the need for us to stop doing things comfortably and start doing them in a new and fresh way. Could God be using the massive disruption that we all experienced in 2020 as a way to breathe some fresh wind into our lives?

We don’t always need pandemics and massive social uprisings to find new wind in our lives. We can find this very thing as we dive into the Scripture and spend time with fellow believers. Fresh wind comes when God breathes new insights into our current realities.

Today’s Music Monday is about realizing the need for this fresh wind perspective and then experiencing just that – the breath of God breathed into us all over again to revive us and wake us from our comfortable slumber.

Famous For

February 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Image result for famous for tauren wells

So I’ve had a few days lately that made me wonder what in the world is going on! When life turns a corner that we’re not expecting and throws a wrench in the plans we start to wonder if things will ever get back to normal. But how do you get through when life is all upside down?

Today’s Music Monday is a reminder that we serve a God who kind of has a certain way of doing things. He has an approach and a character that really shouldn’t surprise us.

When life is upside down and inside out perhaps instead of shaking our fists at God wondering where he is and what he’s up to, perhaps we could pray for God to do what he’s famous for. Do the things that he normally does and give us the faith and trust to be able to sit back and watch it all unfold.

Heal Our Land

January 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

It’s no secret that this world is in a bit of a messy place. From natural disasters to a global pandemic to racial issues to concerns about violence to political betrayals and the list goes on and on. It’s no wonder the world is more divided than ever before! It’s no wonder that everyone is feeling the effects of this past 12 months in some way, shape or form.

But how do we fix it? How do we heal this broken land? How do we right what is wrong and turn this ship around?

This week’s music monday is about the healing that’s needed in our land and an idea for how to move beyond where we are to a place of healing. I’m going to let this song speak for itself. I hope you enjoy.

Little Drummer Boy

December 24, 2020 / / 0 Comments
for KING & COUNTRY 'Little Drummer Boy' video goes viral

I know this song is an annual hit for me. On this Christmas Eve, I want you to know how important this song is to me. Every year for Christmas I listen to this song over and over and this version of it just takes it to a whole new level.

The song Little Drummer Boy is pretty simple and there’s not a lot to it to be honest. It started out as a song that was a little boy playing a drum and singing his simple song because that’s all he had to offer. Over time this song has been filled with a lot of extra fun stuff but the gist remains. It’s about a simple song with a crude instrument that some find annoying.

The joke in my family whenever someone has a child is that we’re going to buy that child a drum set just because you can’t turn a drum volume down and getting started it’s just a lot of pounding that makes very little sense.

But the song Little Drummer Boy reminds me a lot of who we are at Christmas time. We decorate our homes and turn on the extra lights. We make a mess while we make cookies and wrap our presents. But all of that, no matter how great you are at baking or wrapping or any of it. All of it is nothing if we don’t just play our drum.

Playing our drum means that we use the gifts God has given us to the best of our ability. We lead. We sing. We dance. We preach. We work on cars. We play sports. We paint. We love on people. Whatever it is use it. Play the drum. It may not sound like much but it’s your song. It’s the song He wants to hear from you!

So turn up the volume. Crank up the bass. And listen as these guys play with everything they have the song God gave them to play.

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