We Do Not Have Permission To Quit Or Stop

As I've grown older, I've tried to embrace different streams of music and song writing. Some have been good. Some did not satisfy my taste. Please realize as I make such comments, this is not an indictment against those musicians or the songs they have written. It is merely my taste.

Seems to me that taste and preference are forged over the years. The ear is tuned to the voice of your own generation. Such songs and people that were and are a part of that generation are given permission to speak to your spirit through their words and chords. 

I consider myself most lucky to have been born in the 50's and enter my teenage years during the 60's. As much as it was a time for radical thought concerning the establishment, it was also a radical time concerning the Kingdom of God. God was preparing a generation to exercise it's voice for His glory and Kingdom. IT was time for the Jesus People Revival.

There was a shift in the way people saw church and the way people "did" church. During a time of peace and love (as the Hippies saw it) God took those concepts and practices and poured out his own definition and Spirit among my generation and defined a people for himself.

To me, the entire Jesus people movement was summed up in the words of the call that God extended to Abram in Genesis 12:1-2 : Now the LORD had said to Abram, "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you."  God was not condemning church at that time....but He was raising up a generation that would approach relationship with Him in a different way. It would not be tied to our father's way of church. Here again let me stress that this was not an indictment against anyone or any group of that day. It was the simple pleasure of the Father's heart being expressed in a new way. Just as God told Abram that He was going to lead him to a new land, through the Jesus movement, we were lead to a new life and a new way of seeing the Father.

I guess that is why I love this song by Nancy Honeytree so much. Because we felt like pioneer's. We felt like we were on the cutting edge of something new and exciting. To be honest with you...I still feel that way. I still burn with a desire to express my love to God through song and worship. I still want to share Jesus with those I run into. I still want to be the Father's arms, legs and voice in a world that grows darker and darker every day. 

As I watched the video of Honeytree, it would be easy to look at her face and see the years that have rolled by. But I choose to listen to the voice that has not lost fire or love for the Father. I do not wish to glorify those early days, nor do I wish to create a museum to them. I simply want to acknowledge them as a turning point in my life, that has brought me to where I am today.

God on you....
mb