Life on the Pasture

I had the privilege of leading our school ministry’s online chapel today (which was actually recorded yesterday, but that’s another story). As a part of the message, I showed a video of the song “A Different Drum” by the singer Blanca. Here are a few of the lyrics: “We're gonna march to the beat of a different drum / We do that left right left to our own rhythm / And we'll keep on movin' / 'Cause we're not afraid to stand out / We're not a copy of the status quo / We're cut from the cloth of the original.” That last line reminds me of the creation account in Genesis: “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NIV)

But then sin came into the world and, like a shattered mirror, our ability to reflect God was ruined. No longer did humans naturally love the Lord their God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength. No longer did humans naturally love their neighbor as themselves. Instead of true community, self-centeredness began to prevail. Everyone else was to blame. And if someone did something that angered another, that person was destroyed. That’s the ugly pattern of sin laid out in Genesis 3 and 4 with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel.

At the risk of sounding hypocritical since I’m posting this on facebook as well as our church website, social media sometimes reflects that ugly pattern. Even for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we sometimes disregard Paul’s words in Ephesians 4: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29, NIV) Instead of practicing the true art of debate, we shout down or insult the intelligence of those who hold a different opinion than we have. And the result? Anger, frustration, disgruntlement, and lack of happiness driven by the incessant drumbeat of sin. 

Jesus offers us a much different drumbeat to follow as the Holy Spirit would restore to us the joy of the Lord’s salvation – true joy that does not derive from the false hope that we can always be right, but from the reality that Jesus alone is the Righteous One who invites us to know the wonder of being loved by Him and the contentment that comes from truly loving others as ourselves.

Unfortunately, that’s not the normal beat of the world. But as Blanca’s song says, “We're not a copy of the status quo / We're cut from the cloth of the original.”

– Pastor Schmidt

Lyrics from “A Different Drum” Blanca Callahan | Casey Brown | Parker Welling
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Photo by Matthijs Smit on Unsplash