Mighty God -- Ken Young

 

Ken Young had been in touch with God for many years, but something spurred his musical imagination once again in the 2005 timeframe. The Youngs had been Texans for quite a while, but Ken and his family – not without some uncertain moments – had made a move to Nashville just a couple of years earlier, so could this big change have allowed him to catch a new vision of the “Mighty God”? Lots of new faces, new experiences, never-before-seen vistas – those are all things that one must embrace with such a move, and Ken would probably tell us that he knew that when he and his family were considering such a change. A big God knows it all, and He’s ready for anything. He’s just waiting to see how far you and I will go, especially when we cannot see. Ken’s poetic words suggest he saw himself near his Lord, ready to imitate Him, though not without acknowledging how he felt standing in the towering shadow of the One he was trying to follow. Ken fairly admits in the words he penned that such a sensation is not a one-time episode – and that a follower must know Him intimately, and yet cling to this fearsome God.

 

Just precisely what circumstances were on Ken’s mind as he shaped ‘Mighty God’? The short answer is not forthcoming, though we have some clues. (If Ken or one of the other Youngs reads this and wants to respond, please do!) Ken shared in 2022 some of his remembrances of that period in a sermon-podcast (see the link below) some 20 years after he and his clan moved their Hallal music ministry to the Nashville area in 2003. Some of his own family expressed disagreement with this adventure, so that must have weighed somewhat on Ken and Marca (Ken’s wife) as they packed and headed in a northeasterly direction to central Tennessee. In the podcast, Ken also calls out joyfully members of the church where they settled, so perhaps there were experiences with them that played a role in Ken’s thoughts. God can provide a family of faith, no matter how many question marks a move entails. Ken’s poetry is very engaging, in that it tells one that He’s a BIG God, as we try to mimic Him in our own small way. This is a repeating pattern in all the facets of human life, as Ken reminds us with all the various contrasts he draws. He's the sunshine, and I'm a candle (v.1); while He’s a mountain and me a hill. He's also an ocean, I'm a river. It’s an admission of the human angst, when Ken says this river is winding and swirling as it tries to achieve stillness. Canyon and crevice; heavens and a star; and thunder contrasted with a whisper (v.2). Just how small would we feel if He actually spoke to us audibly?  Fire and ember; eagle and sparrow; lion and lamb (v.3) – they all remind us of the vast nature of Him, versus us who weakly try to emulate Him. And yet, He wants us within His embrace.

 

Perhaps the really biggest part of Him is His heart. Even the prodigal son (Luke 15) – arrogant and unappreciative in his attitude – was not too far outside of this Father’s shadow. Ken must have gathered that too, if you notice in his lyrics what he doesn’t say. None of the big things in Ken’s words overwhelm or belittle the smaller things. This Father doesn’t turn away from the sorrowful son, saying ‘Look how much time and money you’ve wasted, you bum!’ Jesus didn’t tell one criminal while hanging on a cross ‘too little, too late, fella’; He told him paradise awaited (Luke 23:43). How mighty is this God? Ken tries to facilitate our comprehension of this, but he’d probably concede that there’s only so much we’ll understand before seeing Him face-to-face. God is one-of-a-kind…in three persons, however. In fact, if you’ll let Him, He’ll come right inside, helping you get in touch with His big heart. That’s the only way to be with someone this big and powerful, who won’t try to crush you at the same time.  

 

 

 

Here’s some brief biographic info on the author in last decade-plus : https://www.linkedin.com/in/young-ken-80550675?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2F

 

The first minute of this podcast indicates the author-composer was in Franklin, Tenn’s Fourth Avenue Church of Christ in the 2003-2011 period, after a move from TX where his Hallal ministry and work as a worship minister had been since its inception: https://www.fourthavenue.church/ken-young-wholehearted/

Magnificat – Mary

 

Other teenagers have authored songs, but this one and its various circumstances would be unique. And, the divine subject of Mary’s poetry – “Magnificat”, meaning ‘Glorious’ in Latin -- has had such everlasting significance, that His import cannot be overstated. Did her words begin to form from the moment she was visited by the angel, and then grow as certainly as did the holy child inside her when she visited her relative Elizabeth and received still more inspiration from this encounter (shown here in this masterpiece artwork of Raphael from the early 16^th Century)? Did the miraculous babes from the seemingly barren wombs of Elizabeth and Hannah, a centuries-old character who would likewise sing a song about her child (1 Samuel 2:1-10), further swell Mary’s heart? The divine nature and the mission of this unborn child, and the details of His conception reverberate forever, right into eternity.

 

You could say that Mary had experienced all three characters of the Triune God at once when the ‘God-with-us’ – Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14) – came into her to prepare for entry into the human world. It’s something we can ask her in eternity: ‘Did the interaction you had with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make your poetic words – the Magnificat -- flow so especially well on that occasion?’ Gabriel’s message from the Father (Luke 1:26-38) might have been electric, all on its own, and yet within a short time, the Holy Spirit overshadowed and conceived in her the Son. And, an angel also appeared to Joseph, to reassure him that this awkward situation for Mary and himself was a divinely inspired one, so ‘take Mary home as your wife.’ Do you really think that Joseph would have kept this bit of news to himself, or would he have shared it with his betrothed, to substantiate his decision to do the culturally unthinkable – take a pregnant single teenage girl as his wife? Can you hear the conversation between this couple, when Joseph says ‘Mary, wait’ll you hear about the dream I had!’ (Matthew 1:20-21) ‘Joseph, honey, I know all about it! He told me the baby will be King, forever, following in your family’s line of David!’ (Luke 1: 32-33) Is it too tame to speculate that these two were dumbfounded? Mary might have also considered other supposedly infertile women in her history, including Sarah (Genesis 21: 1-2); Rebekah (Gen. 25:21); Rachel (Gen. 30:22-23); Samson’s mother (Judges 13:2-24); Hannah (1 Samuel 1:2-20); the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:8-37); and of course, Elizabeth (Luke 1). What a club, that Mary had just joined! And yet, the child she would bear was holy, unlike all the others. He would be God (Matt. 1:23; Luke 1:32,35). That proclamation from the angels needs no further elaboration. Astonished? Excited? No adjectives suffice to describe how this young girl felt, so maybe the song she wrote was her way of telling family and friends her rationale for proceeding in a situation that, by all outward appearances, was pretty untenable.

 

For three months, Mary stayed with Elizabeth (Luke 1:56), perhaps the first person to hear Mary’s exaltation to God. While Zechariah’s tongue was stilled until Elizabeth’s child was born (Luke 1:64), Mary’s and Elizabeth’s tongues were excited to tell the startling news of God’s impending arrival. Mary’s voice and her complex feelings cannot be adequately described; perhaps hearing her multifaceted outpouring, her contact with God so personally, is what one musical composer has reasoned should be the response to more closely mimic all that Mary must have been feeling. Randy Gill’s Magnificat round has some of Mary’s feelings emerging bit-by-bit, so that one can sense -- just a little bit, but certainly not completely – what it must have been like for Mary to express what was going on inside, as her spirit cohabitated with this holy unborn God. Miracles are enough to strike anyone dumb (like Zechariah). Blessed be Mary that she was a servant and a poetess, but not silent!  

 

 

See photos here of the Visitation:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Visitaci%C3%B3n_de_Rafael.jpg (Rafael in 16^th Century)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DARET_Jacques_Visitation.jpg

 

Hear the Magnificat, as arranged by Randy Gill, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F33Y7OgXzM

Let Your Spirit Come -- John Chisum

 

It must have been one of the first songs that he wrote, and maybe he would say its words summarized in a pretty broad way the approach he would use for his life’s work over the next three-plus decades. John Chisum asked in a very personal way for a blessing from God when he said “Let Your Spirit Come” in 1989, but since he chose to record his prayer, he obviously wasn’t planning to keep this private. No indeed, because given what John has done in the last eight years (since 2015) to feed the Christian songwriting industry in Nashville, one might suggest that he has been enlarging his nearly 35-year-old prayer to draw others into that same petition he first made. ‘Share what the Spirit has taught you’, is one way to describe how this organization (Nashville Christian Songwriters [NCS]), which John leads, is promoting a worldwide effort to galvanize input and train thousands of like-minded music professionals. Pretty ambitious, right? But should we really think otherwise, that the Spirit should be limited in any way? He’s really after the whole earth, isn’t He, and so why shouldn’t a guy like John Chisum strive for the same objective?

 

John Chisum was just at the start in 1989, so it’s probably fair to say the he hadn’t yet seen how calling on the Spirit for personal cleansing might eventually mushroom into something much bigger. John’s call to God in 1989 was simple, with words about the Spirit coming like a nourishing rain. Were these John’s own thoughts, or instead from one or more biblical episodes that he could have read? Could it have come from the prophet Isaiah, who told of God’s own plan to send righteousness like rain (Isaiah 45:8)? Or, perhaps John’s poetry was inspired by some of the last words of King David, as he described his long relationship with God, and how His Spirit had enabled him to rule the people like a blessing of rain that causes the grass to grow in morning sunshine (2 Samuel 23:4). John’s own final few poetic words suggest he felt something was amiss, that he needed ‘wash(ing)’, to be made ‘whole’ by the Spirit. This difficult circumstance of John’s remains untold; could it also have been, that he faintly imagined his own future and was asking for the Lord’s intervention to make that a reality? Many young bucks – including this blogger! – have sought the Lord’s favor when stepping into the wider world upon leaving the safety net of mom and dad. ‘How do I make my way, and which direction do I take’?  Read John’s biography of his time in the early 1980s, when his start in worship ministry in Nashville fell upon hard times, even leading to homelessness for his family for a brief period, and you might wonder if ‘Let Your Spirit Come’ was his cry from that pit, one that that he could not forget and eventually had published a few years later.

 

How many inventors’ success stories began with flops, not unlike Thomas Edison, who reportedly had scores of failures before he successfully offered the world his version of the light bulb? John Chisum could probably well remember that his initial failure came just a few months before his introduction to mentors who were crucial to his later success. These two fellows, Gary McSpadden and Bill Gaither, were just what John needed in the 1980s – perhaps the Spirit’s way of answering his plea for help? John Chisum’s early troubles as a worship music professional might speak volumes to others, and perhaps that has been part of what motivated him to launch and grow the NCS. The Spirit can work through one fellow, or maybe we’ve too often missed that He can work through organizations, too, arousing large groups with a synergy that carries with it an unstoppable momentum. Just imagine hundreds, and even thousands of people, trading ideas and experiences with each other – that’s the NCS vision. John’s hope is to train 1,000 new songwriters by the end of 2025. What can the Spirit do? John’s already gotten his answer once in his life…stay tuned to the same channel, and see what he says in the next few years.

 

 

A site that shows some of the activities of the songwriter: https://www.nashvillechristiansongwriters.com/john-chisum-releases-new-worship-single-with-ncs-songwriter-tamera-perry/

 

And, here also, including a brief note about the author that mentions over 400 songs that he’s written: https://www.nashvillechristiansongwriters.com/

 

A site that tells a little about the songwriter: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnChisumOfficial/about

 

This site shows the many songs (over 200) that the author has written or co-written: https://songselect.ccli.com/search/results?List=contributor_P401541_John%20Chisum&CurrentPage=1&PageSize=100