I had an interesting revelation recently. I’d like your take
on it. This might be a little convoluted, so follow close here. This took me down unfamiliar paths; perhaps
they’ll be new ideas to you as well.
I was worshipping in the morning, and I was using a track
from one of my favorite worship bands. The track was a very popular worship song:
everybody and their bass player has covered it.
I found myself drawn into that place of intimate worship. I was thankful for such an anointed song to help lead me
into the place of the sacrifice of worship.
And it began to dawn on me that yes, there was an anointing
here, but it wasn’t on the song. Hmm. Yes? Tell me more.
I considered for a while the possibility that
some songs might not carry an anointing on them, but people using the song for
anointed purposes still produces an anointing.
That didn’t quite fit right. Why would this song be
anointed, and that song not be anointed? (Yeah, I know: there are answers for
this, but that’s not the path my meditation took this morning.) Might the
anointing on a song vary with the anointing on the songwriter? Or the anointing
present during the songwriting.
Then I recognized a feeling in my spirit: That’s not the
right path; you’re getting distracted. (Have you ever played “hot & cold” [“You’re
getting warmer…..”] when your parents or someone hid something for you to find?
We did that with Easter eggs. This was like that.)
So I backed off and just listened in my spirit, watched to
see what Holy Spirit might be highlighting for me.
After a bit, I realized that while He uses songs, it’s not
songs that He anoints. Hmm.
The infinitely personal Spirit of the Immortal God doesn’t
anoint melodies or harmonies with His presence, nor lyrics, though he’s quite
happy to use them all. He doesn’t anoint the guitar solo, or the percussion mix,
or the click track. It’s not the song’s arrangement, or the engineer’s mix of
the song or use of equalization and reverb that carries God’s presence. Neither
is it the choice of instruments nor the choice of microphones. It’s not the physical
CD, or the data of the .mp3 or .wav file that He anoints.
God anoints people. God’s anointing is on people (and
Biblically, you can make a case that he’s not all that particular about which
people, believers or not), not on people’s tools. My tool is mine; God doesn’t
typically anoint my stuff. God anoints what’s his: you and me.
I’m still working through the question of whether God
anoints the tasks that we do; for the moment I think not, that His anointing is
on people as they do the tasks, but the jury is still out on that one.
And here’s where it gets personal. This means – if I’m
understanding His heart correctly – that when I sense God’s anointing on a
worship song, as I did in this morning, that I’m mistaken.
I can think of a couple of directions that could go:
- I’m
pretty sure that very often what I mean when I say “It’s an anointed song,”
is that I’m remembering experiencing His anointing while engaging Him with
that song in times past. Our emotional memories are really powerful, and it
could be those emotions I’m remembering.
- Or
when I experience an anointing in the context of a song, it may be that my
own spirit (and perhaps my soul, too) is trained, conditioned to quickly
and smoothly enter into the place where I experience his anointing. I can
think of worse conditioned responses.
- Closely
related to the above, I think I’ve experienced times where my spirit is so
thirsty that it leaps with joy at the barest hint of an opportunity to
worship my Creator/King/Lover, and I mistake that leap toward Him for His
anointing. I guess this one speaks to the quality of my private worship
times. I confess, I love it when my spirit leaps to worship, but it is a
sign of lack of spiritual nutrition in my life. Hmm.
- Since
I’m trying to be honest here, the possibility also exists that I’m
deceived, too. It is a real possibility that when I experience something associated
with a song which I’ve used for spiritual purposes, that I’m actually
engaging a religious spirit. Let’s be honest, there is a lot of
manipulation that happens in some times and places where we worship God.
Looks like I need to keep my discernment ears on.
- Or
something else may be going on.
But God’s anointing is on people. Not tools.