{"id":547,"date":"2011-02-04T11:59:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T16:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=547"},"modified":"2011-02-04T11:59:12","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T16:59:12","slug":"better-than-a-hallelujah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"Better Than a Hallelujah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father!\u00a0 As I was driving in to work this morning Lord, the song \u201cBetter Than a Hallelujah\u201d<\/em><\/a> by Amy Grant came on the radio.\u00a0 While the inspiration of those wonderful lyrics settled over me, it started me thinking about some the other fantastic messages I\u2019ve received through Christian Music as of late.\u00a0 As yesterday\u2019s discussion we had was about the disturbing direction some media has taken, I thought today we could focus on the positive message that these songs bring to us instead.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the chorus from \u201cBetter Than a Hallelujah\u201d<\/em><\/a> :<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pour out our miseries
\nGod just hears a melody
\nBeautiful the mess we are
\nThe honest cries of breaking hearts
\nAre better than a Hallelujah\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

What a wonderful way to say that You love us for who we are, and when we honestly seek You that our plea comes through loud and clear.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful song, and always warms my heart when I hear it.<\/p>\n

Another one I\u2019ve become extremely fond of, and actually posted the video of as a dedication to my wife on Facebook the other day, is \u201cDancing in the Minefields\u201d<\/em><\/a> sung by Andrew Peterson.\u00a0 Towards the end of the song, the lyrics contain the following verse :<\/p>\n

\u201cCause we bear the light of the son of man
\nSo there\u2019s nothing left to fear
\nSo I\u2019ll walk with you in the shadow lands
\nTill the shadows disappear
\nCause he promised not to leave us
\nAnd his promises are true
\nSo in the face of all this chaos baby
\nI can dance with you\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love this!\u00a0 What an amazingly powerful metaphor connecting marriage and the way that You love us.\u00a0 It just makes me want to hold Shannon tightly when I hear it\u2026 What a wonderful message.<\/p>\n

One more for the day Lord, and it comes from the song \u201cLead Me\u201d<\/em><\/a> as performed by Sanctus Real :<\/p>\n

\u201cTo lead them with strong hands
\nTo stand up when they can’t
\nDon’t want to leave them hungry for love,
\nChasing things that I could give up<\/p>\n

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
\nAnd give them the best of my life
\nSo we can call this our home
\nLead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone<\/p>\n

Father, lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve talked about this song before Father, but this truly represents my hopes and prayers as a father and Your Child so well that it can\u2019t be repeated enough.\u00a0 I see this song as a prayer from my heart, and strive daily to be the man this verse describes.<\/p>\n

There are many more examples as well Lord, but these are a few that touch me the most.\u00a0 It\u2019s comforting to know that while Your Word may not be on millions of TV screens this Sunday, the airwaves do still carry Your Message of Love to us each day.\u00a0 Thank You for reminding us of Your Love and Aspirations for us through these talented artists.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father!\u00a0 As I was driving in to work this morning Lord, the song \u201cBetter Than a Hallelujah\u201d by Amy Grant came on the radio.\u00a0 While the inspiration of those wonderful lyrics settled over me, it started me thinking about some the other fantastic messages I\u2019ve received through Christian Music as of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[350,931,930,851,933,934,634,286,321,772,596,27,935,915,36,508,541,173,6,500,42,844,628,932,444,140,159,464,13,658,104,133,388,23,355,141,506,776,445,587,572,217,205,249,841,659,227,114,157,379],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-amazing","tag-amy-grant","tag-andrew-peterson","tag-beautiful","tag-beautiful-song","tag-better-than-a-hallelujah","tag-chaos","tag-child","tag-christ","tag-christian","tag-christian-music","tag-comfort","tag-dancing-in-the-minefields","tag-dear-lord","tag-direction","tag-discussion","tag-example","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-fight","tag-focus","tag-follow","tag-friday","tag-hallelujah","tag-happy","tag-heart","tag-home","tag-hope","tag-inspiration","tag-lead-me","tag-light","tag-love","tag-lyrics","tag-marriage","tag-message","tag-mind","tag-morning","tag-plea","tag-positive","tag-power","tag-powerful","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-prayers","tag-promised","tag-sanctus-real","tag-shannon","tag-thank-you","tag-wife","tag-wonderful"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-8P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}