COFFEE TALK WITH GOD: Music — the universal language

Published 6:00 am Friday, June 22, 2018

“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” was written by Anna Bartlett Warner. 

This simple song has been in my memory since childhood. One morning in early June, I awoke with it on my mind. Haven’t thought of it in a long time. Days before I was wrestling with the reality and simplicity of faith — Complex, but simple at the same time.  

I’m grateful to be raised in a Methodist home where music was a part of our life. The Wesley brothers wrote many popular hymns still sung today. In part because of them, I’m a bi-product of my parent’s genes.  

Mom’s family was definitely all about music. She sang in school and church, but her father sang in the church choir with only one-and-a-quarter lungs until he was 85. He along with a brother and sisters performed as young adults at tent revivals in the early 1900s. Dad’s side had either drunks, addicts or preachers, generations of them, in the Methodist church. No wonder my two favorite things since childhood are knowing God and music.  

I played the piano at both grandmother’s houses before I started lessons at 7-years-old. Mom said unlike most children that bang on pianos, my playing had melody and dynamics. I didn’t like the discipline of lessons and stopped before too many years, but I got the basics. Not until my heart filled with Jesus in 1989 did I want to play again. I bought a piano on time and started learning on my own, mostly worship music. My first songbook, bought with birthday money from my grandparents, was a hymnal from the church I attended. “Jesus loves me” is in that book. 

During my spiritual honeymoon years in Nashville I began to understand the part music plays in the life of a Christian. I always felt spiritually connected to singing and playing music. Choir in school and church always set me free. Then I studied under a pastor who was a musical evangelist, Ray Hughes. Holy Spirit gave him great insight into the scriptures about music and the arts. His teachings changed my world, but really were just confirmations for what I’d known my whole life. Until then I didn’t fully understand God’s plan for the gifts and talents he had given. Perhaps I still don’t.

Have I ever mentioned the fact Gideon defeated the enemies of God with music? Yes, music. By the time God decreased the number of men Gideon had assembled to fight, there were only 300 to surround the enemy’s camp. Not enough if you look at the numbers and odds of winning. Strategy for the spiritual battle was to blow the trumpets left by the men returning home before the confrontation.  

In those days, there were no cell phones or walkie-talkies to communicate messages to the legions of troops or people moving from place to place. The trumpet, as was the bugle in the cavalry, sounded out the commands.

The remaining 300 men with Gideon carried 300 trumpets, plus clay pots that would break sounding like horse’s hooves. Surrounding the enemy gave the impression there were 300 legions of men, not just 300. The “sound” of troops advancing on the camp as the enemy slept frightened and confused them. No wonder they ran in all directions leaving their supplies and provisions behind. Music was the weapon of war. 

“Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,” is a song and story of music in battle. You can read the account in Joshua chapter six. 

For 25 years I’ve been telling artists, especially musicians, that God wants to use their gifts for His purposes. Is it any wonder many of His chosen fall into temptation?  

Consider this the next time you listen to patriotic music, or the sounds of a symphony or music on the radio. The songs that make God’s Top 10 touch a chord in the listeners that is universal — inspirational.  

What are you listening to? Does it bring God glory and give you peace, or is it inciting a riot?

VICKY BRANTONis Teche Life editor of The Daily Iberian.