“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When reading this quote I think of the evasiveness of music– how each melodic note weaves in and out of our veins navigating through walls we didn’t know existed on its journey to evoke joy, sorrow, and laughter, and in one moment it reaches its destination. The place where goose bumps raise against our skin as each note pulses through our body causes our once calloused hearts to become enlightened in its newfound vulnerability. It is the place where a wave of nostalgia overcomes us by the sweetness of every lyric as it rolls off our tongue because it perfectly encapsulates a pastime that our vocabulary once failed to define… This is the power of music.

The Power of Music

01.11.2014

A couple nights ago I was playing a show in Chicago with a few other musicians. We arranged our show so it’d be a two-hour, singer-songwriter set where we would each take a turn sharing a song and the story behind it, feeding off one another’s energy as we cracked jokes and sang. As each musician played I looked around the audience to gauge how everyone felt during a song. During some songs, people would be tapping their feet and clapping their hands, but as the tempo of songs slowed down and the stories grew in intensity, I could see a hollowness in people’s eyes, not an emptiness, but a vacancy showing that they were exploring a nostalgic scene they once knew.

Music breaks down walls.

It is the bridge to the core of our soul that provides fullness when words alone are insufficient.  It has the propensity to evoke emotion, remind us of old memories, inspire us, make us laugh, and I’d bet you my guitar and a new pair of strings that God was so intentional about that!

An old worship pastor of mine said, “The second most commanded spiritual discipline in scripture is to sing. Over a 100 times in the book of psalms alone it tells us to sing.”

Psalm 104:33 says, “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.” It doesn’t even say that you have to sound good! The Bible calls us to sing in joy, sing in sorrow, sing in thanksgiving–both in suffering and thanksgiving. Just sing! God will listen even if you do sound like one of the singers on the “Worst of American Idol. “

What a beautiful gift He has given us. Let’s not waste it friends.

Taylor