The Toil of Faith

"I think what serious artists want is not so much to be famous...but to be assured that what we are giving our lives to is worthwhile

in the end.

The doubt will always be there, but a little recognition gives, for ever so brief a moment, a glimmering reminder that there is value to this work of art-making—not relative value alongside other, more useful tasks, but value in itself. Maybe it is enough."

Vic Sizemore, see Image Blog

I'm working to finish writing some worship songs lately. My friends Andrew and Wes have encouraged me not to set these songs aside even after I had decided to do so. Even though I worked for years as a worship leader I never have really identified with the larger contemporary worship movement. My goal here is certainly not to offer any critique of it. Really I was just surprised to find myself in that role as a worship leader especially since I wasn't really 'into' worship music. 

So here I am trying to finish these songs for a little recording I'd like to do with some friends.  These songs are a struggle. Sometimes I think they are beautiful and other times I'm just tired of them. Some days I feel like forgetting that a guitar ever existed and just pulling levers for a paycheck. Wrestling with words, meaning and melodies all in an effort to have a living conversation with Jesus sometimes feels like fooling myself.  

Is this what the Bible means when the curse comes down in Eden and work becomes 'toil'? Our gifts and our work, our breath and all of our tending feel like striving toward a country we'll never actually see in this world. We work alongside those myriad of witnesses to the life of faith in Hebrews 11. They toiled in faith. Their lives were beautiful songs lisped out in a world of unhearing. They weren't famous or affirmed. They were driven by a warm holy madness for a home just beyond their reach. 

"In those days the love of most will grow cold," Jesus says. The joints of my soul get stiff and achy a lot days. It's hard to get my heart out of bed. Care and love's attentiveness are both such a labor of faith. We may never see their fruit in this world. I must believe that the toil of faith is not an illusion. I really do believe that actually, but seldom is that belief accompanied by the feeling of truth. Fame wont really bring that feeling. I pray to be faithful. To make. To Toil. And then one day to die, waking into the Kingdom of Jesus where the things that matter become matter in the living glory of that place.