A thousand men

A thousand men could not compose
A worthy song to bring
Yet Your love is a melody
Our hearts can'’t help but sing!

These are words from an Indelible Grace song which I have been listening to over the past few weeks. This has prompted sufficient thoughts to result in an unexpected return from my bloging sabbatical to share these thoughts.

1. What no amount of effort can achieve is achieved by God's love for us.
It's so easy to default to strategies and efforts when it comes to being a Christian. If I just work harder, do some more stuff, get more people mobilised then we can make this happen. But it's never a question of sheer effort and resources. I am currently in the process of planting a church with a small group of people and it is a very helpful reminder that even if there were a thousand of us in the church that would not give us the resources to be able to do 'church' better. No, actually it is the love of God working in us which makes us able to be a church. We don't need a thousand people we just need God's love.

2. What no amount of effort can achieve we can't help but do anyway.
I guess this is what makes the poetry work so well. The thing we can't make ourselves do we are all doing anyway. You see all of God's creation can't help but sing of God's love. That's why humanity's great art forms are obsessed with narratives around love, relationships, betrayal, renewal, hope, sacrifice, good, evil, suffering and joy. As we tell these stories of creation, love, brokenness, despair, hope and sacrifice we are singing God's song because his is the great story of his love for a people who are broken, His is the great story of sacrifice as he dies for the very people who want him dead. His is the great story of hope as he promises an end to suffering a pain and death. We sing these songs because we cannot help but mirror the melody of God.