When God Has a Playlist

In the following post, each song title contains a link to that song if you want to listen to it :)

 

I really didn't want to hit "Shuffle" last night. I'd just spent an hour and a half sitting in the Beef  'O' Brady's Parking lot with three friends from my Bible study group talking, without reservations, about the things that most of us are afraid to talk about. Discussing questions that no one really knew the answer to, but we were all hesitant to ask. Things that some of us are afraid to ask because we are afraid of our own answers. It had been powerful. It had been enlightening... and as I got into my car to drive home I felt like my vulnerability needed to be guarded. As I looked down at my iPhone, I just couldn't bring myself to hit "Shuffle."

 

Now my music library has been "baptized" for years. I think I have six songs (maybe less) on my phone that aren't Christian songs and none of the six have anything in them that would make my heart/mind stray from God. So when I say that I felt like needed to protect my vulnerability, it wasn't that I needed to protect it from anything "bad." I just needed to make sure that it stayed intact. Maybe I should say that I needed to "preserve" my vulnerability in case God had something else to show me. I didn't have time to create a playlist because I needed to be home by eleven, so I took the safest route possible and defaulted to my Favorites playlist. There I was able to hit "Shuffle" without as much hesitation.

 

As I drove out of the parking lot, my mind was racing in 1,001 different directions. I was thinking about the new ministry God laid on my heart recently and I was just trying to figure out what to do with it. It's a daunting project, really. So daunting that I've only told a select few about it because I don't want seeds of doubt to be planted early on. It is a project that will require complete dependence upon God's provision and protection and those who feel led by Him to take it on will need divine guidance in every single matter. I thought about how hard that could be and how sometimes I don't feel like God's guiding me in every way. I remember sighing and shaking my head -my vulnerability being replaced by walls. Not wanting to think about it, I tuned into my music and "Light Up the Sky" by The Afters started playing and the words hit me like a wave.

 

When I'm feeling all alone with so far to go,

the signs are nowhere on this road guiding me home.

When the night is closing in, it's falling on my skin.

Oh, God will You come close?

 

How fitting. As the rest of the song played, I was humbled and a peace and joy filled me. I imagined a life of complete surrender to God and found it so appealing in a most terrifying way. I was torn between my desire to surrender and the fear of what that meant -and the music changed. "Jesus, I Am Resting" is an old hymn that Tricia Brock remade and it's words have always soothed my soul.

 

Jesus, I am resting, resting

In the joy of what thou art.

I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart.



 

When I heard those words, I felt God speaking to my heart. I just want to show you my greatness, Ashley, and I want you to rest in the joy of my love. I want to experience that love and I want others to experience it as well. I want other to rest in the joy of knowing Jesus. My mind went back to my ministry. That's what this is all about. As the song neared the end, I was beginning to catch on. I waited for the next song with anticipation -and when Big Daddy Weave's "Love Come to Life" came on, I broke out into a smile.

 

I've been restless on the inside,

wondering about this heart of mine.

I've been desperately trying to find

a way to prove that I'm still alive.

Has the love I speak so loudly of quietly grown cold?

 

Has my life been an empty voice?

What I say needs to be seen.

I need to step out and make the choice to let go of everything.

Will you reignite this heart spark here in the dark?

 

Those words sum up everything that God has been convicting me of lately. I claim to love Jesus, but most of my life has just been an empty voice and I know that am being called to step out in my faith and let go of everything. I'm being called to love without limits -with reckless abandonment. Cue the last song before I made it home: "Live Like That" by the Sidewalk Prophets.

 

Was I love when no one else would show up?
Was I Jesus to the least of us?
Was my worship more than just a song?

 

I wanna live like that and give it all I have,
So that everything I say and do points to You.
If love is who I am, then this is where I’ll stand.
Recklessly abandoned, never holding back,
I wanna live like that.

 

I really don't feel like I need to offer explanation for that one, but that song is my prayer. That's the life that I want. Plain and simple. All the way.

 

Sometimes it's funny how God even uses our little idiosyncrasies (such as my peculiar dislike for the "Shuffle" button) to reveal great things to us...

 

Life is like my music library. There are all kinds of songs that can play. There are all kinds of situations that I could potentially face. The "Shuffle" button is my surrender to the unknown. The beauty of it all is that even when I hit "Shuffle" God always has a playlist.