If I receive songs from the Holy Spirit, does that make me songwriter?

 

Picture this. 

You’re there in your quiet time or in a prayer meeting or taking a ‘praise break’ at church or in an actual praise and worship service. 

You’re singing the scheduled songs or praying the usual prayer, and then, it happens - real, heartfelt words and unrehearsed songs of appreciation and adoration and love, start actually flowing! 

You somehow know that you are truly connecting with God and you find yourself in a moment of spiritual breakthrough! 

You feel a release; you feel joy; and the religious experience that was a boring, burdensome struggle just a few moments before, has suddenly turned into Heaven on earth! 

The duty of praise and worship has given way to Spirit-led passion! 

Now, don’t get me wrong - feelings or no feelings, we are required and privileged to honour God with the fruit of our lips (Hebrews 13:15), but being able to offer spontaneous worship to God is indescribable! (Can I get an ‘amen’?)

Why have I said all that?

The experience of Christian songwriting is almost the same. 

There are times when a songwriter goes to the notepad, or the computer with a topic in mind, and starts writing a song. 

The song rhymes. It is scripturally accurate and it really is beautiful. 

In the long run, it is a blessing to someone, too! 

But oh, the difference when a song comes rushing in! 

Often, this happens when you are not prepared to write and you find yourself caught between just relishing this sweet moment of worship, or scrambling to find something, anything to write on and with (because you know you are likely to forget this!) 

For other Christian songwriters, the experience of getting a song comes in dreams. 

I have had a very small number of dreams where I was singing a new song, or I heard a new one being sung.

But I have never been able to recall them, and it really isn’t the main way that God gives songs to me. 

Either way, there is always a sense of honour to write songs for the Lord, but nothing can compare to the joy unspeakable of when the Lord Himself comes and gives one to you!

I’m actually not a songwriter 

As unbelievable as this might seem to you, my dear readers, I am not a songwriter. 

Kudos to those of you who can really just get to it, but I can’t just write. 

In fact, there have been several times when I sang a little line or two and thought it was God singing through me. I went ahead to write a full song but it often has not worked out. 

I have struck out a couple songs from my writing pad that seemed like good songs at first. 

But I felt myself struggling way too much to get the tune and the words. 

At the end of the day, I don’t just want to write or sing.

I want God to sing through me. 

I want His voice to be heard and His effect to be felt through me. 

Is it wrong or bad to struggle to write a song for God?

Struggling to write a song is not necessarily a bad thing. 

From my experience, there were times where it turned out that a song idea was really just my flesh, and I struggled way too long and hard over it. 

But I have also had the experience of struggling (albeit to a lesser extent ) even after having a spontaneous song released into my spirit. 

While I’m in the moment of receiving the song, all the lyrics are clear, the tune is clear too, and I’m happily singing and worshipping, or singing and doing a jig, or singing and doing the dishes. 

In fact, the song is so etched in my spirit (or so I’ve thought), that I don’t feel the urgent need to go write it down. 

Then, something happens to distract me, and two hours (or two days) later I vaguely remember that I had gotten a song.

There I am over my notepad fumbling and begging the Holy Spirit to remind me of the song , please! 

That’s when I struggle to write a song that was genuinely sent from Heaven. But my naiveness and carelessness robbed me of the flow. 

So is getting a song different from just writing one?

Oh yes it is! 

Well, at least I think so!

First off, (barring a delay on your part) there is less struggle to get the words and the tune. 

It’s just easier. After all, when you get a song you’re just getting it! 

It comes already done, and you just collect the package! 

Sometimes there might me some patching up to do, but for the most part, all the work has been pretty much done by the Holy Spirit Himself. 

It just becomes harder if, from my experience, I don’t keep myself in that open atmosphere long enough and write it down while that anointing is present. 

Then there is the joy factor. 

Writing a song on your own feels like...well....work. 

However, when you receive a song from the Holy Spirit it comes with gladness and excitement!

Lastly, when we write songs on our own we do get to be a blessing. 

But I want to believe that there is an extra-special impetus from the Holy Spirit when He carries His own songs to our own hearts, to the hearts of His people and even to unbelievers too. All this as He woos us to Himself. 

The Levitical honour 

Either way, Christian songwriters are a God-blessed breed. 

We are like the Levites and priests in the Old Testament, bearing the very Ark of the Covenant.

The Levites were the ones who played the instruments and sang full time in the temple in David’s time. 

Whether you are a classic songwriter or you get songs from the Lord through dreams, or they come rushing to you in your quiet time, it is a high and honourable calling to have God sing through us! 

Oh, may He find us worthy and may He take us deeper still!