the theme of my song

For those of you who don't know, I love music. I love the sounds, blends, lyrics, voices, and everything else. I a firm believer that good music can make a mediocre movie/TV show good, and a good one great. It is why I love Scrubs as much as I do. The show probably isn't the best ever, but the music does such a good job of capturing the emotions of the moment. Music has the ability to say a ton, sometimes without using any words.

I always play my iPod on shuffle. I like the level of surprise that comes with listening to things at random or out of order. Now this doesn't mean I never skip songs to get to one I like, but there's nothing wrong with dictating every now and then. I especially like shuffling when I listen to worship music. For some reason (though we all know the real reason), I always hear a song that fits right into something I read in the Bible or some issue I struggle with. The song will either encourage or challenge me depending on what I am in need of most. Yesterday, I was driving home from another tough day where my joy was waning, when the song "Closer to You" by Mark Schultz flooded from my speakers. To be perfectly honest, I want this song to be played/sung at my funeral. The entirety of it fits better for that occasion, but the first verse was for my (not a typo) here and now;

Closer to me I'm tired and I'm weak
Every breath within me is longing just to be
Closer to You
So I face the road ahead
Cause I know there's no comparing
To what's waiting at the end

So let the rain start falling where it will
And I will run through this valley
Just to climb to that hill
And if they ask why I'm smiling
After all I've been through
It's cause I'm just a day closer to You

If you think I am saying how ready I am to be taken away you would be right. But that does not make the thought morbid or depressing. In fact, it is one source of the Christian's joy. Because each day we finish here is one day closer to us receiving our True Love and heart's deepest desire, we can find joy no matter how horrible the things around us are. It doesn't mean I walk around waiting to be taken away for that would be abdicating my responsibility as an ambassador of Christ. It simply means holding eternity in plain sight as I struggle to make a difference in the world through the good news of the gospel.