On Singing Like Whitney Houston and Flashbacks

The other
day, I was sitting in church, listening as the worship band played in the
background during a time of communion. They
were playing the song “Hosanna” by Hillsong United, and I was kind of humming
and singing along under my breath. “Hosanna”
has been a pretty popular song over the last few years, and although I’ve sung
it probably a million and one times, it’s still one of my favorites. 

On the race,
many times you are expected to sing–it doesn’t matter if you’re prepared, and
it especially doesn’t matter if you are actually musically talented. The mere fact that you are traveling around
telling people about Jesus, or maybe just the fact that you are American,
automatically seems to mean that you should be able to belt out a song on
demand with the vocal expertise of Whitney Houston. 

Believe me, I
love music and I love to sing, but you may not actually want to hear me singing
“How Great is Our God” at the top of my lungs from a microphone at the front of
a church service.

As you
can guess, most of my team felt the same way. So after a few times of being caught off guard by these impromptu concert
requests, we came up with a few tried and true worship songs that we all knew
and that we could sing together, each of us drowning each other out, in a loud
mix of indistinguishable voices. 

“Hosanna” was
one of those songs.

We would walk
into a thatch-roofed hut church in the middle of the jungle that was filled
with five or six villagers who had traveled miles just to worship God with
other believers and soak up His Word as it was preached. We would pull out a guitar, start singing “Hosanna,”
and suddenly we were standing in the presence of God as his family as we all,
despite language barriers and off-key voices, praised the God who loved us and
had brought us together.

Songs are
kind of like photographs. When you hear
them, they can immediately take you back to a place in time, a certain memory
that you associate with that particular song. Sometimes it’s one memory, one scene that you feel like you’ve been
transported back into as the melody moves you along in the present. Other times, there are many memories, many
pictures that play like a slideshow running across your mind’s eye. 

“Hosanna” is
one of those songs for me, the second kind–the kind that immediately takes me
to a million different places over the course of five minutes. Every lyric, every line holds a different
memory for me. Each time I hear it, I
can remember different people or places or events that make the words come
alive to me. I have experienced those
words. I have lived them.

I could
probably write a blog about every line in that song, but the other day, one line
in particular stood out to me. As I was
singing it, the words came alive in yet a new way as sixteen words took me on a
journey at the speed of sound over the last 2 ½ years.

I see a generation

Rising up to take their place

With
selfless faith, with selfless faith

Whoa. Hold up. I have seen that generation.

I have seen a
handful of young Dominican men who have decided not to follow the status quo of
alcoholism and laziness so common in their community, but rather to dedicate
their lives to loving those in their community and raising the standard of what
it means to be a man.

I have seen the
Thai women who are choosing to make a living with their skills and brains,
rather than their bodies, knowing that in our twisted, sinful world, they could
make more in a month in a brothel than they might make in years as a teacher.

I have seen
small gatherings of Vietnamese people, young and old, all over the country who
are crying out for the salvation of their people, refusing to be silenced by a
government that threatens their very lives if they will not be quiet.

I have seen
Cambodian teenagers who are rising up with true hope for their country that is
just now recovering from a genocide thirty-five years ago that decimated one
third of its population. They are
choosing to stand firm on the truths of the Bible rather than Buddhism, at the
cost of being kicked out of their homes and families.

I have seen
over 25,000 young people gathered together for the sole purpose of worshiping
the God of the universe and praying that he will act and move on behalf of the
poor, broken, and oppressed.

I have seen hundreds
of people choose to be a generation who refuses to settle for a comfortable,
easy, self-centered life, rather choosing sacrifice and selflessness as the
best way to tell the story of the gospel with their lives.

That’s just a
glimpse of all the snapshots that flashed through my mind as I sang that line
that I’ve sung so many times. As all
these memories flooded into my mind, I just sat there, completely humbled and
honored to have had the privilege to have seen the things I’ve seen over the
last 2 ½ years. 

I have literally seen a generation
that is rising up all over the world

 It is so easy
to get discouraged and weighed down by the state our world is in. Statistics on human trafficking or the
tragedy of another school shooting or the devastation of another hurricane–sin
has made this life hard and this world a difficult place to live.

But let me
tell you, there is HOPE. There is a
generation who is rising up, who is taking their place in this world with a
selfless and sacrificial faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit and motivated by
the love of the Father. And the truth
is, that generation has nothing to do with age or economic status or
ethnicity. It’s about the heart.