I'm convinced that Chris Rice...

...has one of those nifty red phones that usually connect people to the President, except his connects him to God. I'm not talkin' little meaningless one-sided conversations. Theirs are those talks that would put teenage girls to shame with their length and depth (well, I doubt the girls would miss THAT, but you get the idea...) His lyrics never fail to paint the most amazing pictures in my mind, grab my heart, take me by the hand, and bring me to the throne room of God in worship. Incredible. His lyrics are so genuine and obviously from his own experience. He can truly empathize with all the crud that goes on in people's lives, and he knows the TRUTH about sin and salvation and speaks it boldly. He thinks about things commonly taken for granted and gives them a whole new perspective, and is not afraid to try something new with the musical style, because he's never put himself into a concrete genre box. God is truly using this man, and has blessed him with such a distinctive voice and talent. Some of the most significant times in my life have been emphasized by various songs he's written (HE wrote 'em!!! Not someone else!! That is way too rare nowadays). No other musician's work has ever been able to draw such intense emotion from me- tears, sobs, grins, outright laughter, spontaneous dancing, you name it. I can't NOT sing along! Ever since I got my noise-canceling headphones, I can hear even more clearly the finesse of the instrumentation, complexity, and sheer musicianship.
"There's just today, that's all we've got. Tick tock, the past is locked, the future's far away, we can't go back, can't hurry it up, we've gotta learn to live today."
"I'm always talkin' bout a change, but talkin's all I've done. I'm gonna start tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes- there's just today."
"I get so clumsy, I get so foolish, I get so stupid and then I feel so useless. But you're sayin' you love me, and you're still gonna hold me and that you wanna be near me 'cause you're makin' me holy, still makin' me holy"
"How can I be so prone to wander, so prone to leave you, so prone to die? And how can you be so full of mercy? You race to meet me and bring me back to life!"
"I wake to find my soul in fragments, given to a thousand loves. Only one will have no rival, hangs to heal me, spills his blood."
"O praise Him all His mighty works! There is no language where you can't be heard! Your song goes out to all the earth- Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!"
"God if you're there, I wish you'd show me. And God if you care then I need you to know me. I hope you don't mind me asking the questions, but I figure you're big enough."
"But the stillness moves and the silence yields and not a single beat is lost. You can hear the chorus in the fields taking up where we left off. And Your praise goes on, rising to Your throne, where You guard us while we dream. Past the stars they fly, Your praises fill the sky till You wake us with the dawn. And Your praise goes on."
"Now rise up everything that lives, flap your wings and leap for joy. O Forest lift your arms and sway, clap your hands you ocean waves!"
"And when my final breath You lend, I'll thank You for the life You gave. But that won't mean the praises end, 'cause I won't be silenced by the grave! And Your praise goes on! I'll be runnin' to Your throne with every nation, tribe and tongue! To Your arms I'll fly, I'll gaze into Your eyes and then I'll know as I am known. And Your praise goes on!"
"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. And blessed are the hands that keep giving and never receive and blessed is the heart that gets broken, but keeps holding on, holding on for another day. 'Cause that's what it means to live by faith."

.....I could go on for pages, but I doubt you want to read that much! Suffice it to say, the way God spoke through the words of the apostles is the same way He's speaking through these lyrics. I have 7 albums already, but there are more. Crazy. That's the amazing thing about God. He's not like country music- you know, all the songs are about pretty much the same thing- dog, truck, girlfriend, boyfriend, betrayal, love, blah, blah, blah. *flinches as I'm hit by every country music fan out there* Sorry! But it's true, you know. But God...well, there's never a shortage of things to sing about Him, because we will never truly know on this earth everything there is to know about who God is and the stuff He's doing in the lives of the people He loves- EVERYONE!
I can't even begin to imagine all the ways He orchestrates my life because He cares for me and wants the best for me, even if it means pain along the way. Refiner's fire. I love that term. The actual process, honestly, sucks. But it's my own fault that it sucks. It'd be fine if we'd just give in the first time and learn the lesson and move on, but no. Stubborn and insolent is what God called Israel, and that is still true of the entirety of humanity. After all, we are all related to the first Adam and carry his sinful nature. Thankfuly, the last Adam has come to set us free from slavery. Sweet freedom! How I wish that more Christians today realized that they are free to be bold and fearless. Insecurity, pride, selfishness, "finding ourselves" (a common worldly practice for a rebellious world that yearns for God but refuses to yield) These should be out of place for us because our true identity is not wrapped up in ourselves and what we do, but in the person of Christ. Incredible. I don't even know how to describe that lightheaded feeling when the weight of, literally, the world is lifted off your shoulders, when you can truly say "it is well with my soul." God is good.
Sorry...tangents are my forte! And I can't talk about music without talking about God, who came up with the idea in the first place. In Zephaniah 3:17, it speaks of God's nature-
"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will REJOICE over you WITH SINGING!!!"
I love that verse. Another favorite concept of mine is laid out in, I believe it's Revelation, but I could be wrong. It's a passage that speaks of the end times/eternity. Everyone always has this vision of the angels singing, because in the account of Christ's birth in Luke, they are. In eternity though, the angels don't get to sing. They get to chant. BUT God's people are the ones singing. WE GET TO SING!!!! For all eternity. How crazy cool is that?!?! But I need to go be productive and not just rave over this stuff all day (I definitely could!); plus, you're probably tired of reading by now. Until.