Love has many facets.
It can be fun, passionate, enduring, broken, healed, playful, reverent, bold, intimate, verbose and silent. It has highs and lows and plateaus. It can have different chapters, like a book, and it can deepen and mellow with age, like a fine wine.
It can be like a multi-faceted diamond.
This presents the songwriter with a challenge. It is difficult to work all these facets into one love song. I think it is impossible. There is always something more about love that could be said. Just think about how many love songs you know.
Describing God’s love is an even greater challenge. It is deeper and wider and higher than the love we have for God. It is more robust, more forgiving, more inclusive and more wild than any love we could ever express.
God’s love is more robust, more forgiving, more inclusive and more wild than any love we could express.
As a songwriter, I have tried to express love to the tune of worship.
In the Worship Suite I explore three different facets of my love for God. There is passion (Unrestrained), companionship (Linger) and intimacy (Fragrance). Three interpretations of the one love.
There is a natural progression of love through these facets.
Love often starts as a wild thing, unruly and untamed. Love can be bold and fiery. This same love can progress to the enjoyment of the loved one’s company, the desire to be with them all the time. Finally, love culminates in intimacy, the sharing of every facet of life with one another.
Love culminates in intimacy, the sharing of every facet of life with one another.
This reflects my own relationship with God across the lifespan. When I was a kid, I danced and sang loudly and did whatever I wanted to express myself to God. I was not embarrassed. I had no filter. And no one minded.
In my youth I worshiped God with adolescent recklessness and enthusiasm. And this has continued throughout my life, nowadays interspersed with times of rest and silence. It has not grown milder, only more willing to receive from God as much as I give him.
As the years have passed, my love for God has not weakened like ageing bones nor withered like autumn leaves. Instead, my love has grown deeper and richer, like an old tree in an ancient forest, yet still young on the inside. And I intend to continue loving God in these passionate and fearless ways.
My love has grown deeper, like an old tree in an ancient forest, still young on the inside.
Worship has nothing to do with dignity. It is about being more playful, more creative and more childlike than any other time. Worship is when I get to be myself – a big kid – around him. It is straightforward, worshipping in childlike simplicity, with no hidden agendas.
And I kinda get the feeling God likes it.
Has your worship shifted over the years? Do you have times when you are passionate about God, and times when you simply enjoy his company? Are there moments of intimacy between you and God? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.