Singing and music and all of that are my favourite things. As an act of worship? Even better. I love music, and have, for the past few years, really explored a love of worship, through music. The honesty, and rawness (the best worship is always the most flawed and crazy combination of people just giving it socks to be honest) manages to take me from however I’m feeling, and throw me right back in to a place where it’s just me and Him.

Being in college (a wild student as you know) you’re completely bombarded with opinions on anything you can possibly think of. And this is great in terms of provoking discussion and allowing faith etc to appear in conversation. However, what I’ve noticed is that people very rarely go into a conversation expecting/hoping/allowing for the possibility that they might learn something new that may change their opinion. Basically, a conversation that they won’t win.

This gets exhausting; as someone who just wishes to get along with people I don’t know very well yet, it gets tiring trying to bring up faith in a positive light.

As Christians, we’re often not any better! We’re always moaning about different things – that worship leader who still does Blessed Be Your Name, that speaker who clearly doesn’t use enough Bible references and is definitely waffling, that Christian clique (what a word) who is just too into themselves- we’re brutal! I only see this because I admit that I do it too- it’s so easy to bond over something you both don’t like. In 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Paul writes, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” This is so difficult ahhhhh!

This post isn’t about that though, maybe for another day. It’s about after all this frustration, how nice it is to be able to fall back to worship.

The simplicity of just you, God, and some tunes is just great.

It’s like the physical embodiment of a sigh of relief. Recently, I’ve been drawn to older hymns. I love modern worship music but flip, you can’t beat a good old hymn. Come Thou Fount is one in particular that is always going around my head. It’s a simple song. It’s been covered by Christian and Secular artists a LOT recently, but the version I’ve been drawn to the most is the one by Sufjan Stevens, simple banjo or something, and voice.

And that’s what I love; simple, stripped back, raw worship, with words you can learn so much from even today. Ironically, it’s these hymns that have the freshest and newest lyrics to me, despite being very old. This verse has recently been very applicable to my own life, so I’ll leave it here, as I have no idea how else to end this post. I hope that the words are encouraging and helpful to you!

 

“Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.”

 

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing versions:

Sufjan Stevens

Page CXVI

King’s Kaleidoscope (Karen hates this one)