Trip Lee released his newest single last night. “I’m Good” feat. Lecrae. I am SO excited about his album coming out in April. This song (and Robot) promise such an awesome experience. The music on this track is amazing and as always the lyrics are outstanding! You’ll definitely wanna go check this out!
For those of us Christian music fans today is SUCH A BIG DAY!!! Do you know why? WELL DO YOU?!?!?!?!?!
I’ll tell you why!
Today marks the release of the first full length album from brothers Joel & Luke of “for KING & COUNTRY”!!! I am so excited!!! I love their sound and I’m looking forward to great things to come from these gentlemen.
YES!!!
Also released today, February 28th, 2012 is the latest from Sent by Ravens. I’m very excited about this band as well! (We play them on Crossroad radio!)
And last but most, most, MOST assuredly not least!!! KUTLESS HAS RELEASED A NEW ROCK ALBUM!!! Their praise and worship albums were wonderful…and we’re glad the guys took some time to make sure their hearts were in the right place. But now that they are…WE ARE READY TO ROCK YAYEAH!!!
Album reviews of ALL THREE coming at you this week so keep in touch! 🙂
I am currently trying to read through the entire Bible…in 90 days. I am doing so with the help of an amazing app on my iPad. Right now I am in the book of Exodus. Here’s caught my attention this morning: In Exodus 13, the Israelites have been released from Egypt while the Egyptians are mourning the death of all their firstborns. God is leading them toward the land that He promised their Father…the magnificent Canaan. But listen to what the scripture tells us in verse 17…
“It so happened that after Pharaoh released the people, God didn’t lead them by the road through the land of the Philistines, which was the shortest route, for God thought, ‘If the people encounter war, they’ll change their minds and go back to Egypt.”
Now this is one of those passages that you read over for YEARS and then suddenly the gravity of the situation fully hits you. Let me focus in on a part of it that really makes the most difference in my personal opinion…
“If the people encounter war, they’ll change their minds and go back to Egypt.”
So God lead Him they way He did (by the way, if He had not He would not have had to part the Red Sea) because He didn’t want the Israelites to face war. He did not want His chosen people to face war BECAUSE…He was afraid they would want to go back to Egypt. He went out of His way…and out of their way…to make sure His own people trusted Him and followed Him without question. To make sure they didn’t want to go back to Egypt. This is Exodus 13:17…and by Exodus 14:10, the Israelites were wanting to go back to Egypt. As you well know…this was not the first time and wouldn’t be the last.
Allow me to be a woman for a minute.
After all…I am a woman. For all minutes.
But allow me to be a woman looking in on scripture and interpreting it in a way only a woman can for a minute.
I’m in the book of Exodus. (I imagine “The Sound”. You know…the sound you hear in an auditorium full of people flipping through the fragile pages of the greatest love letter ever written. Searching for the words I wish to share from within it’s pages.) I’m in the first two chapters of the book of Exodus. “The Sound”.
“So Pharaoh issued a general order to all his people: ‘Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile. But let the girls live.’ […] Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, ‘This must be one of the Hebrew babies.’ Then his sister was before her: ‘Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?’ Pharaoh’s daughter said ‘Yes. Go.’ The girl went and called the child’s mother.” MSG
Now, I’ve heard this story countless times. I’ve probably read it even more. But here is what I had never thought of until today:
I don’t find it very likely that the Egyptians gave the Hebrew mothers maternity leave.
I don’t think that slaves in ancient Mesopotamia were given six months absence after giving birth.
They kept right on building the pyramids, or little brick huts, or whatever it was that the Pharaoh and his people had them do. They were in so much pain and anguish and torment all the time. But look deeper at what this story reveals to us when we are operating under this assumption.
A woman, who had just given birth (an extremely painful process), has her child taken from her. If the child is a girl…she is returned. If the child is a boy…any fleeting glimpse the mother had of the boy as he was being taken from the room is all she will every see of her baby. Intensify. There were no epidurals. If the “Nativity” move that came out a couple years ago is accurate, there was a rope to pull on and some women who made strange congratulatory noises when the baby had been born. There is pain afterward…for women who are doing nothing but laying in a hospital bed. And sometimes there is the deepest kind of pain involved with child birth…and that is the death of the child. As women in the twenty first century, at best we will deal with one of these pains at their most intense level.
These women were going through full birthing pains…the pain of losing their sons…and then:
they went back to work.
Long days. On their feet. Grueling heat. Drowned child. Returning home in the evening ready to feed the baby (really think), play with the baby, wash the baby, and then put the baby to sleep in his own bed. That now lays empty in the corner. This pain…with modern technology and medicine is unimaginable. But the story doesn’t end there.
This mother got a second chance. This mother, just after the pains of birth, put her youngest/newborn son in a basket and placed him in the river. She kept him afloat in the river he was supposed to be drowned in. His sister stood by to see what would happen. And in God’s ever fantastic ways…a miracle. The baby was found by the daughter of his attempted murderer who knew EXACTLY what was going on! She says, “‘This must be one of the Hebrew babies.'” And I can’t help believe, out in the middle of a river, bathing…after having just found a baby in a basket, suddenly a young girl jumps out and volunteers to go find a nursing mother for the child? She must’ve known this was a relative. She must’ve known this nursing mother was in fact his nursing mother. And yet…she allowed it. That is where this story comes truly and positively…unimaginable.
I got some pretty rough news this week. One of my uncles died unexpectedly, and rather tragically. His youngest daughter’s wedding is in four months and even though he’s had a lot of health problems this year, he was doing better. I’ve been searching for heart band-aids. I’ve had plenty opportunities to do this in the past and I KNOW that one of my antidotes is music. So I turned to this new band…For KING & COUNTRY. The two members of FKC are the brothers of RENOWNED worship singer, Rebecca St. James. Their 5 track EP doesn’t HAVE a bad song on it, but my favorite two are “Love’s to Blame” for a silly reason: the way they sing “can’t” with their Australian accents. 🙂 But my Favorite one for GOOD reasons is “Busted Heart (Hold on to Me)“. This song pretty much sums up the way I’ve been feeling since my uncle died. It’s a good medicine for…a busted heart.
Desparate for Grace
Winter has come back again
Feels like the season won’t end
My faith is dying tonight
And I won’t try to pretend
I’ve got it all figured out
I don’t have any doubts
I’ve got a busted heart
I need You now
Yeah, I need You now
(Chorus)
Hold on to me, hold on to me
Don’t let me lose my way
Hold on to me
I am the wandering son
Your love is never enough
I keep chasing the wind
Instead of chasing Your love
I’m screaming out Your name
Don’t let me fall on my face
I’ve got a busted heart
I’m in need of a change
I’m desperate for grace
Hold on to me, take all of me
Don’t let me lose my way
Hold on to me
Broke Your heart a thousand times
But You’ve never left my side
You have always been here for me
You never let me go
You never let me go
Don’t ever let me go
Hold on to me, hold on to me
Don’t let me lose my way
Hold on to me
Hold on to me, take all of me
Don’t let me lose my way
Hold on to me
Until it comes to an end
Soon this season will end
I’ll surrender tonight
You meet me right where I am
In addition to doing a format shift and a specialty shift on 90.5 WASU here in Boone, Nouf-cack-a-lacka, I’m working a two hour Friday night shift in Winston-Salem on 103.1 WBFJ. I get there around 9:30 at the latest and then hit the airwaves at 10 with my good friend Dave Bumgarner. At midnight, the show’s over and I head home. But I gotta have my music for the car ride home and there is only ONE song that keeps me awake for the hour and a half drive I have back to Mt. Airy. It’s my favorite song right now and I want you to know about it. I’m talking about Tedashii and Lecrae’s fantastically entertaining and melodious:
Dum Dum
This song is awesome! I love the beat, I love the words, and I LOVE the music video! Check this song out and let me know what you think about it! Be sure to tune in Sunday nights at 6 via your radio in Boone at 90.5 or http://www.wasurocks.com via the internet ANYWHERE in the world to listen to the BEST in Christian Rap and Hip Hop!
Lecrae: Hey listen, Real Skinny
Loud Color Tennis
Body marked Up Like Graffiti
I don’t push a Maserati, Beamer, Benz or Bentley
And yeah I roll a foreign, and yes I’m looking spiffy
Go ahead and doubt us, but what you know about us
We aint gotta follow them No, we take another route-a
No we aint blowin trees bro, open up my window
I see you poppin tags, but you know that’s why yo ends
low
I tried to tell em we was comin’, go on, let us in
Why they hatin’ like we all a bunch of Hooligans?
No Gimmicks, Spirit in my lyrics
Know when people hear it they gon’ love or they fear it
And how we flow, when we show up at a show
They say we go so hard in the paint, they can’t wait
for some more
But some others say we preachin’, some close-minded
teachin’
Like we aint heard of Marx, Locke, and Nietzsche,
Believe me
(Chorus):
Lecrae: Eh, They Don’t know about us, they don’t, they
don’t know about us
They, They, they don’t know about us, they don’t know
about
They think we Dum, Dum Diddy Dum, Dum
Tedashii: But they Gon’ know, they gon’ know about us
They gon’ know about us, they gon’ know about us
Oh they gon’ know about us, they gon’ know about us
Tedashii:
6,2, 2 plus, go on add it up
(Hey, that’s a big problem, call it Calculus)
Math don’t subtract, but content like I had enough
Long hair, don’t care, Samoan plus I’m tatted up
I know this blow ya mind, and I aint blowin pine
Not talkin’ women lookin skimpy every otha line
Yeah, I got a dime, about to make her mine
Life in Christ got me finished like a crossed a line
With the way that you’re telling me to sell, sell out
Nah man it’s so foolish, done tryin to be you and don’t
fit
Mis-fit, I don’t trip, everybody hate Chris
They sayin’, get with this, just like a membership
They talkin’ slick like this is it, but it’s just
gibberish
I say I’m interested, they say ‘you different’
Oh, you gon’ know even if you don’t let us in
(Chorus)
Tedashii:
Dum on em, dum on em, like I could be
Dum on em, dum on em, like you should be
Dum on em, dum on em, like I would be
Dum on em, dum on em, yeah that’s cool with me
(Chorus)
Unbelievable Undeniable 