This is the Place

I was inspired by the phrase that ends Isaiah 18:7 "the place where his name dwells." For the Jews in the Old Testament, that place where God dwelt was Jerusalem. For me that place can be anywhere. It is not so much a physical place as a in a church building, or beside a river. Where I am with God is that place. I got inspired to write a song.

This is the Place

This is the place, Your quiet place
Here there is rest for my soul
This is the place, Your holy place
Here I'm restored, I'm made whole

This is Your sanctuary
This is Your throne
This is Your dwelling place
I make it my own
My place of surrender
And worship to you
The place where your glory
Fills all - all that I do

OK - is a song without music just a poem? Is it a poem because it rhymes? There was music in my spirit as I wrote it and it kind of just flowed. I had read as article from Christianity Today about worship and, not what is wrong with it in our churches today, but more what could be more right! He mentioned about the need for churches to write their own songs. The experience of our church, our testimony as a body, is not going to be the same as another church. When you try to express that experience of God, you can end up leafing through the hymn book and not find just what you are looking for.

I can remember years ago expressing the view that we should be writing our own stuff and getting shot down on flames by the music group at the time. They said that there were lots songs and songwriters, more than enough for our needs. I don't think there can ever be enough songs. I don't know whether because you are a talented musician, or singer, that inevitably leads you into writing your own songs, or whether that is a specific gift. It just seems to me that song-writing should be the fruit of a heart of worship.

Having said that I wrote a song - I don't really do tunes. I am not a musician. If I hear a sequence of chords and a rhythm I can sometimes catch a melody. Left to my own devices what I come out with always sounds like something else. The last time I tried to come up with a tune, my husband said, "I've heard that before-…Ah yes, it Bali Hi from South Pacific!" So last night I took my song to music practice and explained that I couldn't do tunes. What happened next was just awesome! Our guitarist on hearing the words a couple of times strummed out a rhythm, sang a verse, declared the it "fitted" and we all got down to fine tuning the melody. It was amazing. Between us we created a beautiful worship song, that was ours, and not Matt Redman's. It still needs work done on it but it was amazing. We were all tremendously encouraged and felt that we had grown up and matured in some way.