It's another Tuesday and it's time for The Notes!!! Welcome! We're glad you're here!!!
With each passing Tuesday, we find ourselves closing in on the end of the year. For many, getting to the end of this particular year will be a really, really good thing as their vantage point and opinion of 2020 has a negative slant. I'll confess, 2020 has had its share of challenges, but out of its unique possibilities, we have seen created cause for a different way of doing things. Ingenuity has been on display from the restaurant drive-through to the way manufacturing creates and ships items. Words like "essential" and "distance" have had an unusual emphasis and increase of use.
In the face of the challenges that I have encountered personally and as a resident of this world during 2020 I find myself asking a question with a positive slant..."What can I learn from 2020 that will change me for the better?" The responses to that question range from sometimes light and frothy as the top of your favorite coffee drink to thought-provoking and life-altering like a death in the family. Both replies deserve to be observed and cataloged in the recesses of the mind, soul, and spirit for what they are. Both replies guide and direct next steps in the process of life. And most importantly, both replies serve as a reminder of Who writes the songs of our lives in the first place...
Written by a Beach Boy, originally recorded by a Captain and then released as a single by a Partridge, "I Write the Songs" made the popular music rounds until it landed on the piano of Barry Manilow who was originally reluctant to record the song at all. But once he was convinced, "I Write the Songs" took off, landing Manilow at #1 on the Hot 100 in January of 1976. It was listed in the year-end countdown at #13 in 1976 and it won the 1977 Grammy for Song of the Year.
Bruce Johnston is the writer of "I Write the Songs". He stepped in for Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys concerts when Wilson wanted to devote more time in the recording studio. The Captain and Tenille recorded "I Write the Songs" for inclusion on their chart-topping, #2 album Love Will Keep Us Together but never released it as a single. The Partridge Family lead singer David Cassidy did release "I Write the Songs" as a single for his solo project, The Higher They Climb, also produced by Johnston but it failed to chart in the US.
The president of Arista Records at the time was Clive Davis. Davis was the one who suggested the song was right for Barry Manilow. Manilow's hesitation in recording the song was that he didn't want listeners to think him conceited by the lyrical proclamation of "I Write the Songs". But after some persuasion from Davis (and I imagine the right contractual agreement), Manilow decided to include it on his 3rd album Tryin' to Get the Feeling. The rest is Pop music history...
Johnston has said that the "I" in the song is a reference to God. He suggests the song celebrates creativity in all of humankind. If you read the lyrics or listen closely, it is very easy to discern how the song could have been written by God. Songs have ignited every emotion and inspired generations. God granting the creativity to men to write melody and lyric is a great reason to have no other gods before Him.
We mentioned last week that as the newly formed nation of Israel surrounded the base of Mt. Sinai they were given the 10 Commandments 3 times. Remember the number "3" in Biblical numerology represents holiness and completion. In this first giving, God audibly speaks to the entire nation. Moses is on the mountain and the mountain is swallowed up in God's presence. The Israelites begin to hear God speak. Their reaction? They tremble in fear and reverence.
It is significant to note that the first words the Israelites hear from God are the establishment of who He is in the relationship with the Israelites. God had limited His interaction with the Hebrews to Moses only during the 3 (There's that number again!) months after they left the slavery of Egypt. After the 10 (numerology - law, and judgment) plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, one would think that the Israelites would have enough evidence of who God was, but just to reassure them, solidify who they were in relationship to who He is, and possibly to drive home the first commandment, God spoke audibly..."I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me."
Why would God start out this way? It was important to remind the Israelites who the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob was. They had been in the polytheistic environs of the Egyptians for over 400 years and one would imagine, even though they hated their captors, that some of the Egyptian habits of worship had seeped into the lives and worship of the Israelites.
Also, remember that a few of the Egyptians that were sympathetic to the Israelites had come along for the journey in the Exodus. These folks would have needed education on who the God of the Hebrews was and what their relationship with Him would be.
2020 has certainly been a year of pondering on priorities for me? What is the most important thing in your life in the perspective of the year we have had? Perhaps you have set a priority on health and safety. Is seeing racial and cultural equality a benchmark of how you spend your time? Maybe this year, being an election year, you have made it a priority to campaign for a specific candidate or platform. Is financial success or just financial stability in uncertain times the main thing that holds your concentration? What do you find yourself spending the most time and treasure? Whatever that is, friends, money, music, writing blogs, health, and sometimes even doing good things, that my friend has the potential to be your god.
Many folks who say they believe and worship God have adopted the mindset of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans. At best we have divided loyalties between what God says and what motivates us the most. We attempt to serve more than 1 master and in that attempt are polytheistic if we were to be truthful to ourselves. The apostle Paul encountered folks just like this at a place called Mars Hill: Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17. verses 22-34 NASB/The Message/KJV
But what does God say? (Randy paraphrase) "I am God. I created everything, including you. I want a relationship with you. I am willing to put everything into this relationship and expect that you will do the same. No one or no thing should come in between the relationship you and I have. Do you know what else? I let my holy, blessed, Son come to where you are and die a cruel death for our relationship. That is how tight I want us to be. So don't put anything in between us, because if you do, that will become your god and I can't have that. Your end of the relationship can not last having the distraction of something else being in My place. No other gods."
Ouch! God's expectations are pretty high, aren't they? I confess, there are times every day where I allow distractions to interrupt my relationship with God. Those things become my god for that moment. Those times make me sad. They also make God sad. But later on in His Word, He says, "I am faithful to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:5-10 NASB/The Message/KJV This provides hope that even though we fail, God doesn't. His part of the relationship never changes and He is waiting to restore us every time we place something other than Him as the priority in our lives.
So how do we maintain God as our priority relationship? Read the Bible. Pray. Seek other believers who can encourage you in your God relationship. Go to church. Go to a Bible Study. Read the Bible and Pray again. Never allow your love of anything, including music or writing a blog, come in the way of working on your relationship with God. No other gods. Besides, God is really the only One who can say..."I've been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song. I put the words and the melody together, I am music and I write the songs..."
'Til Tuesday,
Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
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