O Lord, You're Beautiful -- Keith Green

 

It was a prayer in the middle of a sleepless night, and the result of this episode was one that Keith Green wasn’t afraid to share. (This most likely took place in Garden Valley TX [Smith County], where the Greens’ [Keith and Melody] Last Days Ministries was located in 1980.) He’d said “Oh Lord, You’re Beautiful”, and yet that compliment to God was not the entirety of what he had to say in this prayer. Keith also confessed some things, admitting that there were gaps in his devotion to the One who created and saved him. Adoration, and confession, and finally supplication were also present in Keith’s approach, so apparently he had three of the four letters in the ACTS acronym that so many believers have used to help organize and guide their thoughts to Him. What about thanksgiving, the ‘T’ part? Did Keith fail at prayer because this part seems to be absent from what he wrote, or are we just overlooking that part, somehow? Perhaps the ‘T’ part is the music-making with which Keith responded, taking a page from the psalmists: I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving (Psalm 69:30); Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song (Psalm 95:2). Giving back a song to Him who gave it – thanksgiving can indeed be reciprocal with this One we worship.

 

So, what exactly was keeping 27-year-old Keith Green up on a Monday night, a struggle that he had with something that would not allow him to rest? You can listen for yourself, by clicking on the youtube link below, or alternately read here a brief transcription (more or less) of what he says in the first minute of a performance of ‘Oh Lord…’. He says his prayer, beginning about midnight, was like a letter to the Lord. He didn’t know where to mail it, so he put it in his bible instead. And what was in this letter? He asked God to do something about his heart, because a lot of time had passed since he had met the Lord, and his heart was beginning to harden. This condition was becoming too natural, and Keith wanted to have ‘baby skin’ again, on his heart. He could already feel the inevitable advance of age, that he was getting old and wrinkled, with a callousness that had formed. He wasn’t really doing anything wrong, but he was more distressed because of the things he wasn’t doing. So, he stayed up until about 2:00 AM writing the song. The words he wrote in that two-hour span show he felt ‘tired’ (v.2); that his ‘faith (was) small’ (v.3), and that he’d ignored God’s ‘book of books’, and ‘prayer’ (v.3); and that he needed his ‘fire’ to be re-lit (v.4). He repeats in a chorus that he aspired to sharing God’s word, but that he needed ‘first…to just live it’.

 

We could gather from what Keith wrote, as the title words for this song-prayer indicate, that he had discovered God was with him. Keith might have sounded like a faith-struggler, but that did not seem to have diminished his view or desire to reacquaint himself with the God he knew was listening to him. Perhaps Keith had, during the first few moments when he first knew Him, saved this sensation, like keeping a special secret in a bottle. In 1980, it sounds as if Keith remembered this and had called from inside his own spirit for a renewal – like uncorking the bottle and letting the genie-God out to reform his spirit again. Keith’s life journey had not been smooth – from belief and musical success in his early youth, then to drugs and eastern mysticism as a teenager, and finally returning to Christ in the early 1970s – so one can really appreciate Keith’s expression of what he saw. He’d lived on the ‘other side’, one might say, so could that have magnified his gratitude for the God he could re-envision in 1980? Keith tragically died in 1982 in a plane crash with 11 others, two years after he wrote ‘O Lord…’. What might he say to you and me today? He might not recommend for you and me this circuitous route to God that he traveled, but Keith might respond that he was just a little bit like Jacob – a wrestler with God (Genesis 32:22-32). How about you…are you wrestling with Him?

 

 

Hear the author-composer tell the song’s story here, in the first minute of the song’s performance: Keith Green - Oh, Lord You're Beautiful (Live) (youtube.com)

 

Read about the author-composer here: Keith Green - Wikipedia

 

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Heart of a Servant -- Michael Puryear

 

When was it that God became real to you? If you ask Michael Puryear, he might just pinpoint that time, and then go one step further. Looking at how Michael chose to mark that occasion, how many of us could say that we similarly asked God, through a song, to put inside of us a “Heart of a Servant”? Nashville, Tennessee is a musical place (see its seal here), so that melodic gene was certainly all around Michael, was inside the church where he worshipped, and was permeating his own spirit, too. For Michael, the simple prayer song that he composed in or about 1992 summed up what he was experiencing with the newfound realization of God’s calling. What Michael prayed is like asking the Creator to build a small eternal flame inside one’s being, so that it acts like a perpetual engine with a constant light to show others the nature of the One who gives it. Its fiery presence, you might say, has consumed Michael’s life through all the music he’s been able to write in the decades before and after this special moment. This way of being consumed doesn’t destroy, but actually remakes a person.

 

Michael Puryear’s few words say volumes – so read and hear them for yourself, as he responded to this blogger’s email recently:  David, it (Heart of a Servant) was written soon after reaching a point that Christ became more than real to me. I was going to Ashwood Church of Christ (Nashville area) and wanted to basically write something that was meaningful and could be a worship tool.  The song seems to get to the core belief of Faith and the reason for being a follower of our Savior. Did you notice that Michael said ‘Christ became more than real’ to him? So, it wasn’t just a notable moment for this songwriter, but an extraordinary moment, when he suggests that Jesus was so present, that this God-Man could not be ignored. His own servant nature must have been so abundantly evident, that Michael wanted to mimic Him and urge others to do the same, in order to exalt Him adequately. Jesus deserves something ‘meaningful’, as Michael’s own words testify. What is at the ‘core’ of our faith? Michael must have been wondering, as others do when they first meet this One who claims to be God, then become more familiar with Him, and finally reach a crossroads – a decision point. If He’s really God, and really did behave like the ultimate servant, just to draw me into His saving life, how can I resist? Maybe Michael read what Paul wrote to some Philippians (2:1-11), or perhaps one or more other similar biblical odes –  with a musical edge to them -- as they venerate this servant Savior. If you love music the way Michael obviously does, what better way to amplify His hold on you than to appreciate Him via what He says through His musical messages in scripture?

 

He’s a beautiful God, and so it really makes sense that He tugs at us as though he’s gently strumming the strings of a guitar or tickling the keys of a piano. He’s not loud and obnoxious, but rather a servant, coaxing you and me with His loving, sacrificial nature. Michael describes this servant as tender, faithful, and true with the few words he crafted, as an echo of what Paul and others say about Him. But, don’t just stand there admiring Him. Imitate Him, and understand that you’re His tool for the community that He’s creating. What? I’m not equipped to do that! But, He provides the only thing you need – Himself, and the love example He provides. It will be some kingdom when we all see it, each other, and especially Him there! This kingdom of His has no perimeter fence to limit its membership. He wants the whole world, and you and I can begin this quest in our own small corners where we live.     

 

Thanks to Michael Puryear for his emails to this blogger on 9/3/2024 and 9/4/2024!

 

Read about the author-composer here: Michael Puryear | Belmont University

 

Read about the Ashwood Church and its predecessors and how it has evolved since 1992 here: https://www.woodmont.org/our-history

 

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