A Little Sunday Morning Inspiration

For those of you who know me, you are aware that I am generally not the biggest fan of ‘Christian music’. I can usually take or leave the ‘worship music’ in a church service.  I am Usually not impressed with those modes of expression. However, this morning I was presented with a song which struck me. It struck me with its simple profundity, and timely message. 
You all have heard me talk about oppression, and you know that I believe the problem with oppression to be its nature. It's nature seeks to reduce a person’s ‘is’ness. It seeks to reduce one from what she/he was intended to be. Oppression is an attempted obscurance of identity. John 10:10 is all about that obscurance. Oppression is an opposing force to Grace. It is an opposing force to the truth of God’s intent.

In a moment in history where fathers don’t know how to be fathers, and where there are few examples of fatherhood, in a moment in history where our ‘this present darkness’, is at least partly made up of the emasculation of society, or at least the confusing of what it is to be a Godly man, or what it is to be a father, we need to hear something of substance. In a moment when individuals struggle to be able to come to terms with who they are, Christianity must beat back the reduction with proclamation. When asked about one’s identity, the typical response pertains to vocation, or a list of likes and dislikes. Who are you?... “I like to hike,” “I am into craft beer,” “I am a democrat,” I am a republican,” I am a brain surgeon,” “I am a receptionist…” Those answers may be small pieces, bits of the greater whole, but they don’t get to the core of identity.

Anyway, all of the above is a set up to write just a little bit about a song we sang in church today. I believe the song was written by Chris Tomlin. Frankly, the verses, in my opinion, exist as place holders for the chorus; they do little for me. The chorus, however, struck me with its simple profundity.

You're a good good father
It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am

The message is so simple, and yet so profound. Facing off our ‘present darkness’, the one mired in a crisis of fatherlessness, and identity obscured, the message that God is a good father is a timely message which needs to be heard. Just to know, and to hear it affirmed that God is the Father by which our fatherness ought to be modeled. That He is good; He is not an abuser, and abandoner, an oppressor, a deadbeat…, He is worth modeling. That is big. It is hope inducing. It is comforting.

The next part though, the next part, is something amazing. In a moment in history when so many of us are obscured, and in existence with diminishing meaning and value, a moment when we don’t hear quite often enough from where our value derives, it is necessary for Sunday mornings to be cut through with the simple profound message, and proclamation, that identity properly comes from the Father’s love. 
                                            Who I am is ‘loved’.