Friday, October 13, 2023

Way Maker -- Osinachi Kalu Okoro Egbu

 


She knew she was entering a new time in her life, but wasn’t so sure she wanted to go to a new circumstance as she walked into this different time. Sinach (as she’s more commonly known, versus her full Nigerian name Osinachi Kalu Okoro Egbu) admits she felt comfortable where she was in 2015, perhaps not too unlike what someone else likewise felt centuries ago, though that part of Abram’s response to God (Genesis 12:1-5) is not shared for us to appreciate. He just obeyed. Sinach didn’t have to leave her native country (see Nigeria’s flag here), but she still felt uneasy, even as she decided to trust that God was her “Way Maker”. After reading about how Abram responded, Sinach held on tight and let God do the driving. Which direction will He take you? Can you trust His promise? Those are two questions that Sinach, and you and me, can expect to encounter.

 

Sinach admits that she knew God was drawing her to a new level in her music ministry, but that knowing that didn’t bring relief. Instead, she had to draw on someone else’s story (Abram’s) to find her own place in a new story that God wanted to write on the pages of human history. She says she was struck, that God told Abram that He was going to make him famous – ‘into a great nation…your name great…earth will be blessed through you.’ To say that that must have been a breathtaking revelation for Abram would undoubtedly be an understatement. That’s kinda where Sinach says she felt she was. She says she had already experienced a lot of success in the music she’d been writing for over 20 years, but felt God was telling her that there was another level where He wanted to take the music she would write. And so, she came to a place of trust, because He had said that her music would be able to ‘bring light to every dark situation’, that He’s still the miracle-worker. Could Sinach have understood that the song she wrote and sang in the middle of the decade would become a source of encouragement later that same decade, as the coronavirus pandemic took hold? The song would spread globally, perhaps as wide as the virus, and that was something that Sinach could not possibly hold back. So, when she said musically that He’s ‘moving in our midst’, that He’s a ‘way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper’, these were personal words she felt she’d been given. He’s the ‘light in the darkness’, the One who’s ‘touching every life’, who is capable of ‘mend(ing)/healing the… heart’, and ‘turning lives around’. If one meets a God who’s like that, what should one do? Sinach didn’t have to be coaxed into these words – they flowed naturally. ‘I worship You…I worship You.’ ‘This is who You are…I worship You.’

 

He tells musical history in His own way and for His own purposes. What does a person do when she realizes that she’s in the position that God has engineered? Stand with your feet in concrete, with arms folded, saying ‘No, I won’t!’ Another fellow – Moses (Exodus 4:1-14) -- tried spinning that obstinacy at God, stirring His anger. He wants to bring His presence to all people, but isn’t it amazing, and really just incomprehensible when we’re honest, that we can’t see why He chooses to use you and me to accomplish this? It’s just a real head-scratcher. Why, God? Sinach says she realized, as the song took on its own life – ‘you cannot outdo God’. She talks about being His tool, to touch the world musically from Africa – ‘it’s rare to see’. This is a rare God. He’s the only real One. Sinach is just telling us to let that sink in. Then, let it out for others to see. That’s Him using you, too.  

 

See an interview with the songwriter here, as she tells the song’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVENBMg7XVE (1:00 thru 4:05 of video)

 

See it here also: https://godtv.com/sinach-story-behind-waymaker-encounter-with-god/

 

Also see the song’s story here: https://freshsheetmusic.com/blog/the-story-behind-sinachs-song-way-maker/

 

See some information about the song here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Maker

 

See information about the songwriter-author here: Sinach - Wikipedia

 

File:Flag of Nigeria.svg - Wikimedia Commons (image of the Nigerian flag) -- This work was first published in Nigeria and is now inthe public domain because its copyright protection has expired by virtue of the Copyright Act, enacted 1988, amended 1999. The work meets one of the following criteria: It is an anonymous or pseudonymous work and 70 years have passed since the date of its publication; it is a cinematographic or photographic work and 50 years have passed since its publication; it is a sound recording and 50 years have passed since since its creation; it is a broadcast and 50 years have passed since since its publication; it is government work and 70 years have passed since its first publication; it is another kind of work, and 70 years have passed since the year of death of the author (or last-surviving author). This work is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship.

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