Unceasing Worship by Harold M. Best

Author:Harold M. Best [Best, Harold M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

ARTISTIC ACTION AND THE CELEBRATION OF POWER

We can now come to the final juncture. To repeat, we have the wonderful truth that art does have power, for we know it and we feel it, even if it is a lesser power. As a person who has been trained to perform, to compose and to celebrate the arts, I would be the last one to refute this glory, to imprison my emotions and to revert to a cold, hyperintellectualized approach to the arts. But if I did so, I would be denying the mind of God, who filled his universe with such wonder and delight that more often than not the only thing that will suffice is a shout or a dance or a doxology.

So what do we do with this power? Do we suppress it or act as if it is not there? Not at all. Rather, we celebrate the power both in its inherency and in its subordination to God and to us. We must keep the strength of our responses and feelings intact. We must be thankful that our faith—our continuous outpouring—is a thing of perpetual joy, of richness of sense, deep feeling and especially fullness of faithful response. The key lies in these last four words: “fullness of faithful response.” It is in this fullness that the final secret lies: The power of the arts and our faithful response to them are together to be offered up to the Lord, who is infinitely beyond them, as a part of our continuous worship. Instead of depending on the power of the arts to enhance their worship or bring it about, faithful worshipers can actually enhance the power of the arts by the faith-driven force of their worship.

In other words, when I sing or listen to my favorite song and a flood of feeling washes over me, instead of thinking that Jesus is nearer because I am filled with such feeling, I come to understand that it is because the Lord and I love each other so much that I feel this way. This is right-side-up worship, and this is the way it must be. Then everything falls into place: the power of the song is there, but the power of the Lord is all the more fully there and more fully real. The glory of the Lord, not the song, takes preeminence. I continue in my continuous outpouring; I sing with all my might; I feel deeply; and if I am really connected to my faith, I engage my deepest thinking with my deepest feeling, for as Paul would say it here, when I pray or when I sing, my spirit and my mind are locked in union. This reality finally spells the difference between faith-full worship and worldly worship.

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