From Truth to Stillness

Have you ever just sung your heart out in an empty room? My mornings usually begin with the rush of mother-duties – packing snack and lunch, dropping kids to school in my pyjamas and coming back to a home where my husband is deeply sleeping. House is quiet and I know I remain undisturbed for the next 30 mins or so. I take the opportunity. I sit in silence and yet my heart fills the room with music. I’ve always looked forward to my time alone in His presence, reminding myself and meditating upon God’s truth. It refreshes me for the day and sets my emotions in the right space. I’ve noticed how restless I get on days when I’ve had other things get in the way of this time. It’s a unique time indeed. A time when I cannot pretend or hide or present anything that is not from the heart. I stand alone with no one to impress except for the one who hears my voice. He sees my heart and its deepest intentions. I come just as I am. He tells me to come to Him and He will give me rest. That is exactly how I view worship – a place in which the heart is bursting with the truth and yet undistracted in the silence of it. A place of rest. There have been many days when I’ve been led to lift my hands, close my eyes, cry, smile because the truth of the songs were so deeply surgical. And then I’d be moved to silence – a place where I was so overwhelmed, my mouth could not sing or speak, but my heart was awestruck. What a beautiful space to be in. How I long for our church to enjoy a silence like this – where hearts are full, words are no longer sufficient, and music is only just a piece of tinsel. 

Silence is the complete absence of sound, noise or speech. As light exposes what hides in the darkness, silence exposes the truth in the heart of a worshipper. Do I need to keep playing my instrument for my heart to feel like singing? Do I need to “jazz it up” for the fruit of joy to be an experience? 

As the song writer wrote 

“When the music fades

And all is stripped away, 

And I simply come

Longing just to bring 

Something that’s of worth

That’ll bless your heart….

I’m coming back to the heart of worship

It’s all about you, Jesus.”

• Matt Redman 

The song nailed it! Can anything be added to the heart of a true worshipper to make it more presentable? Can anything create truth that stirs the heart of a worshipper apart from God’s word? The heart of a true worshiper is already full – every added accessory can either play along with the heart or overpower and steal from it.

Music is a gift of expressing the deepest language of the soul. It allows a person to process thoughts and emotions and put them into a dynamic outpour through what we can identify as the perspective of the musician. When it comes to worship music, musicians enter the privilege of pointing to the powerful truths of God’s character and the eternal calling which is given to each of His children through the Lord Jesus. Music can express chasms of heart occasions – celebration, mourning, reverence, awe, yearning to name a few. Therefore it only makes sense when we are called to worship in truth to sing songs which our hearts can believe and our mouths can declare in all sincerity. The truth is found in the limited tool of words to praise an unlimited and ever eternal God. While we can declare truth with our lips, the heart may remain aloof. 

I’ve been talking and trying to find ways to express the importance and great need for musicians and singers to know the truth of the songs which they express through their music. Only then can the dynamic of the music bring out the truth of the song. It has to feel personal. It has to convict. And it cannot do so if the only objective of music is to “sound” like the original group, or bring out the singer’s best voice, or to stir “energy”, or to provoke a “worshipful atmosphere” where people’s hearts race only because of the energy of the music. No. Music in worship goes deeper. Music’s perfection and beauty are grown when its player is focused on the truth. A musician or a singer who is too busy to allow their heart to experience the freedom by just focusing on who God is because they need to sing the right notes, or play the right chords, or the right beats, is not a worshipper. A musical worshiper allows the heart to be prostrate and the mind to be soaked with the greatness of God. Where the words stir the heart to celebrate, the music celebrates, where the words stir the heart to remain silent, the music fades and perhaps only the voices proclaim in AWE what it has the strength to declare. 

I can empathise with a musician, being one myself. The temptation to want to add the frills and all the excitement of riffs, runs, solos, drum rolls, interludes, is strong. When one has the skill to play or sing with musical technique it can be an enticing go-to for a musician to “feel” as though they are giving God their best in worship. But the real question is – how does a musician prepare their heart to worship? 

We do not know, nor can we completely plan the stirring of the heart. We can only prepare. We can choose to focus on the truth. 

There have been times when I have prepared to sing a song with a lot of energy in the music. But when it came to the day of singing the song amidst the congregation my mouth could not sing because my heart was too overwhelmed – instead the musicians did what my mouth could not, inviting the rest of the room to declare the words for me. 

I long to be in a room where music is not the leader – but the conviction of the truth is. 

It is a tricky balance to strike, because while one gives us the confidence in self, the other takes all focus of self and puts confidence in God. 

We do not know how we will be able to fathom and respond to the greatness of being in the presence of God. Many fell on their face. But in the presence of the true worship which Isaiah witnessed in Isaiah 6 he sees his own filth. How pure and holy is the presence of the living God! He convicts the heart of a sinner in the presence of true worship! That is the power of our hearts that is lead by the Holy Spirit. He gives us the gift of music not to create energy or sound groovy, but to express the truth. 

I do not agree with musicians who walk into worship thinking their music makes worship better. Or when musicians feel the need to fill up silences just because it makes them uncomfortable. A true worshipper does not feel awkward with silence, but thrives, for those are the very moments the heart can sing the loudest. 

“Surrounded by your glory

What will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you Jesus

Or in awe of you, be still?

Will I stand in your presence

Or to my knees will I fall?

Will I sing ‘Hallelujah’

Will I be able to speak at all? 

I can only imagine!”

• Bart Millard 

There is only ONE leader – the Holy Spirit – who leads the heart to the truth, who stirs a musician to tell a story where words may fail, and who brings the intellect and the emotion in unison. 

“BE STILL. AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD” Psalm 46:10