I’ve read of Beethoven that, when his hearing was lost, he sawed the legs off his piano and laid its body down on the floor; then, with his head pressed against the floorboards, he pounded on the keys in an effort to hear the notes. He continued to write his symphonies even when one of his greatest tools—his hearing—was taken from him. Passion and perseverance are an explosive combination.

I should pray with that kind of unquenchable desire, especially when it sounds like God is silent. Like Beethoven, I ought to press my ear to the floor; I ought to search for the sound of His footfalls. I am “…a deaf man with my ear to the ground, listening for what You say…

One of the strange things about God’s watchfulness is that, unlike any human vision, His is not only rich in foresight (knowing each thought before it is in your mind, every word before it is on your tongue) and full to the brim with the knowledge of each past event in every human life lived on this planet, but also incisive in its searching–He is witnessing *you* — not just your actions or the things you do.

It seems there is a primordial belief in every human heart that this life is not the pinnacle of existence. All religious walks reflect this instinct in some fashion, I think; the teaching of afterlife is not exclusive to Christianity. Man generally believes in some form of the Beyond, however he may choose to describe it, or whatever his theology may be. I’ve long believed this to be one of the things the writer of Ecclesiastes meant when he wrote that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end”. (Ecclesiastes 3:9) . Eternity has been woven into the fabric of our being.

C.S. Lewis insightfully describes this instinct. From his book, Mere Christianity; “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” And St. Augustine of Hippo, hundreds of years before Lewis ever put pen to paper, encapsulated this very thought a little more simply in the quote from which the song Restless takes its inspiration; “You have made us for Yourself, oh God; and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” – St. Augustine, the Confessions of St. Augustine, book 1…

Displacement is one of those scientific principles we learned in high school. It’s the reason your full bath overflows when you get in it. Or the reason a ship will float. But this week I learned another application for this principle that really impacted me.

The example used was a glass of clear clean water. The speaker took the glass of water and began to pour various things into it like mustard, vinegar, hot sauce, etc. Each item represented a sin that we could fall into: anger, envy, lust, greed, etc. And as he poured each item into the glass, it forced a little more of the clean water out until eventually all that was left was a nasty cocktail full of all these “sins”.

Recently I received an interesting question for an upcoming panel discussion:

What is and is not the “new song” referred to in Isaiah 42:10 and Psalm 96:1?

Interesting question. I’ve heard many worship leaders quoting these Scriptures, mostly before they introduce a new song to the congregation. However, digging a little deeper into these verses reveals that there’s something deeper being said.