Do as I say

Christians don’t tell lies; they go to church and they sing them. – A. W. Tozer

A friend retweeted this Tozer quote a while ago, and I’ve been turning it over in my mind ever since. It’s a provocative quote, and I haven’t looked for its context yet because I wanted to think for a while about what I think it means before I found out what Tozer thinks it means. My first reaction was, “YES.” I’m a member of a contemporary worship team, and much of the music that our team does is fairly ecstatic. On the whole, contemporary worship music (if that can be said to be a single genre) is meant to help a worshiper express an intimate, personal and profound connection with God. Here are some lyrical excerpts from this coming Sunday:

My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean
Your breath fills up my lungs, now I’m free, now I’m free
Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting
From the grave you’ve risen victoriously

Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
And I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way that he loves us
Oh, how he loves us!

Every day, it’s you I live for
Every day, I’ll follow after you
Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord

When you’re in agreement with these kinds of sentiments, these songs can be incredibly fun and fulfilling to sing. Even if the composition isn’t of the highest artistic caliber, there’s just something about singing words you agree with that makes you feel powerful, like you’re changing the fabric of the universe by proclaiming your truth into the air.

That’s if you’re in the mood for it. What about when you’re not? I can’t begin to count the number of Sundays when I have dragged myself to the front of the congregation, grumbling inside about how the half-hour drive to church cuts into my weekend sleeping, or the annoying habits of the other people on the worship team, or how fat I am, or how stupid this music is, or how terrible I am at playing the bass, or how angry I am that people in our community keep dying even as we’re praying for their healing, or how confused I get by contradictions in the Bible, or how I look out at the congregation and see people who look like they’d rather be at the dentist than in church, or any old thing that happens to cross my mind in the wrong way. In those times, having to sing something like, “Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord” is downright galling. I don’t want to walk with God. What has he done to deserve my devotion? What have I done to deserve his attention? Sometimes I can’t even tell if it’s me or God I’m frustrated with, but I’m pretty sure one of us sucks. Either way, singing about how we’re madly in love with each other feels like the most hypocritical thing in the world.

But the songs aren't lies because they aren't true; the songs are lies because *I* am not true. The lie is the chasm between my experience and my hope, between how I feel and how I want to feel, between my fickle nature and a faithful God. I sing lies because I hope that somehow, the truth within them is strong enough to overpower my circumstance and conform me to itself. That's part of what it means to die to yourself, I guess. I live this Christian life, and I sing these songs, because I believe there's something there that is bigger and more worthy than what I can see in my world or in myself, and the closer I get to it, the more it will change me, whether I can tell the difference or not.

Like Hwin the mare said when she met Aslan, "Please, you are so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than be fed by anyone else."