Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
A Time for Everything1
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
4a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
9What do workers gain from their toil? 10I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet [a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Songs have amazing significance in our lives and we all have our favorites. It’s amazing to hear them over and over again at different points in our lives and hear them in new ways but also remember where you were when you first heard them. The above song “This Is The Air I Breath” originally done by Vineyard Fellowship in Ireland featuring Kathryn Scott (I think, the best version ever done) is one of those songs to me.
I was first introduced to the song by purchasing the album on recommendation of a friend who lived in the North Carolina Appalachian Mountains. I would later go on to move in with him there. We were both deeply devout in our faith walk and also at the time entrenched in getting help for our “wounds” from “ex-gay” ministries. Ex-gay ministries weren’t coming off as cruel, dystopian cults with electric shock machines in the backrooms, but rather like A.A. support groups trying to help you get unstuck from such things as “father wounds”, any sexual abuse, peer rejections, or overbearing mothers and over identification with the feminine. Each had their own brand of it, and of course some were nuttier than others but the one’s I went to and my friend went to were more like A.A. support groups with a lot of prayer and workbooks the size of 2 Bibles. When I heard this song the first time, I was blown away. Every hair on my body stood to attention. I definitely resonated with the “desperate for you” and “lost” parts and someone who was isolated and in the closet.
When I moved up to the Blue Ridge Mountains to “find myself” with my North Carlonia friend, I brought this and many a worship CD with me and my friend introduced to so many more that would be keepers to this day. Things didn’t work out up there as I had hoped, so after about 6 or 7 months, instead of returning to Florida, I moved back to Michigan for a 6 month Living Waters Ex Gay Ministry Intensive. I came just in time for the Mordor experience of the approaching winter and found myself very depressed as my friend and I didn’t part on the best of terms.
The Living Waters experience started off strangely with a temperamental, unusual minister running it. I often found myself ignored or butting heads with him and only afterward heard the entire staff had very similar experiences. But while I was going through my 6 month intensive, I thought it was just me. It took everything in me to walk in there and one comfort was the worship team would sing “This Is The Air Breath”. And as soon as they sang this song, I could enter into worship and “breath” again, get into small group and away from that minister. Eventually, once the intensive was over, some of the disgruntled staff would form their own group that was more like a reparative group separate from this ministry. However, it too became divisive for me when I found the leader making disparaging remarks against homosexuals that were clearly bigoted.
I eventually learned to love and accept who I am as a person. Gay. Christian. A Man. So much more. For a long, long time, I had to put away all my worship music because it reminded me of too may hurtful eras and beliefs in my life. A time of black and white belief systems, fundamentalism, that I no longer ascribed to. I have since had periods where I listened to worship again and returned to church here and there. And then just this week, I had a strong encounter with the Spirit of God as I’ve been seeking God but feeling blocks. Then a breakthrough happened. I entered a room and the presence was so strong it was like a literal person was there. I felt the love and the embrace. This presence followed me for some time. I’m not entirely sure why I experienced it but I have some ideas.
This opened me back up to digging through some of my favorite worship music and one of the many songs I pulled up was “This Is The Air I Breath”. I listened to it today and see how my spiritual life has changed. It is really as simple as this song. All I need is Gods’ Word spoken to my heart–I don’t mean the Americanized Bible–God’s Spirit speaking to my heart. I am also connected to the fact that everything I do and all that I am stems out of God. My breathing, my doing, my being here–and it is a great revelation to have. It is a great peace. It is a very dark time in this world, but I can rely on this Spiritual work I have done with God to know who and what I am in the center of my being. I can pray and connect. Thank you Jesus!
And now when I hear the “I am desperate for you” and “I’m lost without you”, it is not in the sense that I am separate from God because I am gay. It is only in the sense whenever I think I am separate or how I would be without God in my life. How much I want and am glad God is in my life.
One worship song: 3 Seasons of My Life. I wonder what are some of your favorite worship songs and where you find yourself if you heard them today?
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