Divorcing My Favorite Songs

"I used to be a poet once," I told a friend the other day, rather cautiously. He didn’t seem very convinced.

“But over time I became too self-conscious. Too rational, and I kind of lost my muse,” I added in a manner of explanation.

My friend nodded apprehensively. He knew what I was talking about. In fact one of the reasons we are good friends is because we like reasons. We often find ourselves rationalizing and making logical connections about every topic we discuss.

Sometime we have to repent for relying so much on reason rather than faith when talking about spiritual matters.

It is indeed true that I once used to be a poet. Or rather, I used to write poetry. But it’s been awhile. After several episodes of reviewing past pieces and shocking myself at how heretical some of those pieces were, I decided to take it slow. I guess I became too careful that I lost that spark.

There’s a self-abandonment that is needed in those who write poetry. It is not that one should not care about making sense when writing poetry. But I believe one ought to spend enough time marinating in a given subject before choosing to be free-spirited about it.

Soak yourself in the doctrine and meditate on it for some time before going all poetic about it. Because poetry is largely sub-conscious, and unless your subconscious has been trained in right doctrine, you always risk losing the truth the moment you go subterranean.

It is G.K. Chesterton who likened the logician to a mad man when he said: “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

What am I getting at with all this? Actually, I am thinking about a song. One that I used to love for years, but I can no longer appreciate it as much as I used to.

It is a love song, and I was convinced it was a Christian song (if the faith of the singer is anything to go by). You probably know it and most likely love it. I am referring to ‘When God Made You’ by Newsong, featuring Natalie Grant.

The familiar chorus goes:

I wonder what God was thinking
When He created you
I wonder if He knew everything I would need
Because He made all my dreams come true
When God made you He must have been thinking about me  

The words sound innocent enough. The message is just the right amount of sentimental. For the longest time I never found anything particularly worrying about the truth in the song. It sounded innocent enough.

In one way, I believe it is innocent. In as far as innocent means that the writer genuinely feels that way about their spouse. But read and heard in the light of what God designed marriage to be, I am no longer so sure I can easily sing along to the song. Let along dedicate it to the one God will find fitting to bring my way.

The undertone in the song betrays that unbiblical teaching of “the one.” You know, that there is someone out there that God has made and designed and tweaked specifically for you. The Yin to your Yang, the perfect fit, your soul-mate.

The words “when God made you, He must have been thinking about me” also betray a misalignment of the object of marriage. It gives the impression that God gives the man, and Adam, a helper suitable for Adam’s needs. But the biblical teaching in as far as “suitability” and “help” are concerned says otherwise. The woman is a suitable helper to the man in as far as the fulfillment of God’s mission is concerned.

My marriage is not about me. God “must have been thinking about me” when he created my spouse is a distortion of the purpose and design of marriage: to display the covenant-relationship between Christ and His bride.

Perhaps I am just stretching and forcing the point. Maybe I am just splitting hairs and arm-twisting the song to say something else in order to make my point. But the water flowing under bridge of the song is hard to ignore:

He made the sun He made the moon
To harmonize in perfect tune
One can’t move without the other
They just have to be together
And that is why I know it's true
You're for me and I'm for you
'Cause my world just can’t be right
Without you in my life

If you asked me, that sounds pretty yin-yangy. Almost-idolatrous. The truth is you don’t have to be together with anyone. You don’t have to be married. And your world will definitely be right (if not better) without that other person in your life (see Isaiah 56:4-5, 1 Cor 7:8).

These are biblical truths and realities about marriage that I have been learning over the past few months. And I have to admit, they are pretty revolutionary. Encountering, pondering and seeking to apply these truths in my own life has radically changed my taste-buds for the messages that I once used to enjoy. I now find myself severing what I once savored, and savoring what I would (without the Holy Spirit) only suffered through. God’s design for the marriage relationship between a man and a woman is more glorious than any of us could ever imagine.

No human being could have ever come up with this. And to think that God had the cross of Christ in mind when He carved out that rib from Adam’s side; it is simply dumbfounding.

For the fame of His name

Ngare