You know how songs can be attached to memories? You could be riding in the car and when a certain song comes on the radio and you will be transported to a specific memory. That happens to me all the time. One song that always seems spark a memory in me is “set a fire”. Every time I hear that song I can vividly remember when I was a senior in High School visiting my brother in college. I drove to spend the weekend with him and was so excited to get the real college experience. The first night I got there Zac told me we were going to go to a party. So there I am at 17 years old envisioning all the crazy college parties I’d seen in the movies. I am bubbling over with excitement but trying to act cool in front of my brother and his friends.
We got in his car and drove off campus because his campus was pretty strict so most parties we in peoples apartments off campus. We walked into this house and there were about 20 people there, so I was already a little disappointed. But I wasn’t going to let this get me down, the party was coming and we were probably just early. After about 30 minutes of small talk someone pulls out a guitar and everyone starts to gather around. My mind was thinking, “sweet live music now were getting started…” Then I watched as the guy with the guitar bowed his head and started praying. What kind of a party was this? The first song he played was “set a fire” and everyone in the room sang along. My brother looked over at me and smiled, he knew that this was not what I had been expecting at all.
Every time I hear that song I think about the time God crashed my expectations. I think about how my older brother surprised me. I think about how I looked around at a community of people that loved to worship Him together. Until recently I would never actually listen to the words to this song. I was too distracted with my memory to think about the actual song I was listening to and the words that I was singing. I have been robotically spitting out the lyrics I’d memorized so long ago.
This past month in Myanmar my team and I helped run the chapel services at a local bible college. We would share our testimonies, preach lessons, pray over students, and teach worship songs. One song my teammates decided to teach was none other than “set a fire.” As they taught this song I actually listened to the words that were being sung. The group of about 40 Burmese students sang the words we wrote down on the board and we all worshiped the Lord together. Something was wrong tho. As I sat there I realized what this song was saying, I heard the words and knew I needed to share. 
I went up to the front and asked if everyone knew what they were singing. Almost all the students said that they did not understand the words. They were just singing the words, but didn’t know what they were saying. Incase you do not know this lyrics to this song are as follows:
Set a fire down in my soul,
that I can’t contain, that I cant control
I want more of you God
I want more of you God
No place I’d rather be,
No place I’d rather be,
No place I’d rather be,
Than here in Your love, here in Your love
So we talked about what these words meant. We talked about how as we are singing this song we are asking for more of God. We are asking Him to invade us fully, asking Him to pour into us so much that it overflows to those all around us. We are admitting to the fact that we will never have enough, that we will always want more of Him. We are acknowledging that He can give it to us, because His love is never ending.
Then we sang the song again and the room transformed. Everyone in the room was no longer just singing the lyrics of a song but they were feeling the meaning of the words. They were asking the Lord for everything, shouting out for Him to fill us up. There was such a difference between the way the song was sung the first time to the way everyone sang it the second time. There was passion and understanding. It transformed from lyrics to a prayer and it was beautiful.
Reflecting back on my memory associated with that song I realized that the people at that party knew what they were singing. Maybe that is why the memory stands out to me so much, why that one time stands out from the countless times I’ve heard the same song. This got me thinking about how many songs are we just singing the lyrics to? Are we simply looking at the songs we sing like words on a page? We speak english. We know what the words mean. We do not need someone to explain them to us, so what is our excuse?
It is so easy in life to just keep singing the lyrics. To wake up everyday and simply go through the motions of your routine. I believe that God is calling us out of that routine. He is calling us to live everyday, to really LIVE in Him. Oscar Wilde says: “To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people exist, that is all.” We need to step out of the stagnant complacency in which we live our lives and step into the spontaneity of living fully in the Lord. This is something I am challenging myself to do and I am excited to see how my relationship with Him is going to grow through this.
Today my team and I are headed to a small village in Thailand where we will be teaching english for the rest of the month. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and love over this year. This past month I passed over the halfway mark of the Race. It blows my mind that this is almost over and I just ask that you continue praying for my team and I. Pray that we stay present where we are and that the Lord continues to use us over the next 5 months. Thank you again for everything.
