The Bald Goat

We talk a lot in our world today. Sometimes the things we say are meaningful and sometimes they are not quite so meaningful. I heard a song the radio the other day called “Barbara Streisand” by a group called Duck Sauce. It is a completely pointless song and the only words are “Barbara Striesand”. Fun beat. Catchy tune. Easy to remember lyrics…

Other times we say things that are truly meaningful and memorable. Like when we remember someone’s name, or we say I love you, or like that time when I was failing all my classes in college and my advisor told me, “You know college isn’t for everyone.” Ouch…

Words are powerful and words can shape the world we live in. There is a mighty power in words. My friend was telling me the other day about prophecy and how it is not so much a telling of the future in some fortune teller sort of way, but in a powerful calling into being something that is not presently true. We can see examples of this in a very real way when people in the Bible were given a new name. Check out the meanings of the names God or Jesus gave to people:

Abram becomes Abraham, “father of a multitude”

Sarai becomes Sarah, “princess”

Jacob becomes Israel, “prince of God”

Simon becomes Peter, the “rock”

The names given to the people are not accurate descriptions of who there were at the time of the name giving. But they are true of what they would become. The name giving was prophetic and it was a gift. God spoke the universe and all creation into existence and with one word Jesus calmed the stormy sea. You might think this is a gift limited to the God and Jesus alone, but think about Adam and how he named every creature or how God commanded Ezekiel to speak to the dry bones and make them alive again. Jesus tells us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we could speak to a mountain and tell it to move from here to there. What a bizarre and amazing power.

All this talk about one thing not being what it wold become made me think of worship. This might seem kinda odd, but I think it can help us and many who struggle with church to understand what is going on here. I mean, when we sing songs in worship, are we declaring what is true or what we want to be true? I think if we are honest we sing about the things that we want to be true. 

Have you ever wanted to do something, but knew that if you kept this thing a secret you could back out at any moment and no one would know, but if you told someone then you HAD to do this thing. If someone knows it is going to make it harder because then they will know! When you tell your friend this thing you are speaking prophetically. You are not telling them what is true right now, but what you pray will come true.

We declare that we live our lives for God not because this is 100% true, but because this is what we want to happen. What we need to happen. So we speak it.

What are your thoughts?