Restoration and Unique Expression

I've used the phrase "unique expression" a couple of different times in this blog. I want to clarify though, I don't believe unique expression means coming up with a music genre no one else fits in...or a style of guitar playing that no one else has(though it might be part). I think rather, about the songs leaders like Moses, David and Deborah sang after and during their encounters with the Lord. Take the song of Deborah for example (Judges 5). We can all stand on her shoulders and sing those words and be encouraged and bless the Lord because those things happened and the song carries truth about Him, "The mountains quaked before the LORD, the One of Sinai, before the LORD, the God of Israel..." but the song came from Deborah, after she witnessed God at work, and after she stood the battle ground. No one esle could have written that song. That is unique expression.

It makes me remember all of the years I spent standing on the shoulders of worship leaders...singing the songs and hymns, being moved, and genuinely crying out to God...but not singing songs that uniquely came from me. And I think of the difference between then and now...when I can sing to the Lord for hours without the guidance of hymns and well known worship songs. The difference is that over the years, my identity in the Kingdom has been restored...as a daughter.

Once again, let's read these words from Hosea, "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. " The Valley of Achor becoming a door of hope is a huge work of restoration. The Valley of Achor was a place of death and deception that no one would want to look at, remember, or talk about...so to say God made that a door of hope is incredibly profound. And then look what happened, the prostitute sang as in the days of her youth. The days of her youth, were days before the prostitution...day's of just being a daughter.

I am learning and discovering that our unique expression is directly proportional to our restoration. And as I wrote in earlier posts, I believe we have unique expression as individuals, communities and nations...and so the unique expression of a nation springing forth in worship, I believe will be the fruit of restoration in the Kingdom.