Jeremy L. Berg

On this week of my 30th birthday I am sharing some personal journal entries that provide a window into the trials and triumphs I faced during the decade of my tumultuous 20s.  

In our teens we are the center of the universe, and everything revolves around us.  In our 20s many of us begin to see our lives as part of a much larger story.  I felt very small and scared as I sought to find my place and unique role in the big, scary “real world” that awaited me after college graduation.  Everything changed for me when I found my personal story suddenly caught up in God’s grand story of redemption as revealed in Scripture. I found my role in God’s big story, and this has been the single most transforming realization of my life. I am not the author of my life, but only a supporting character in an Epic Story where Christ is center stage.

 Another image that captures this reality of being swept up in and moved about by something outside myself is the image of a dance or song.  This journal entry from age 24 lays down the bass line for the Christ-centered groove that has been moving me ever since.  

April 5, 2003

Here is a poem/song that was hastily written down as I was impatiently seeking a moment of inspiration for my journal before going to bed.

 The poem speaks of our life as a song composed and performed by the choices we make and influences we choose to follow.  The sweetest melody is a life composed and performed in a harmonious partnership with God.  We can tune our instruments — our hearts and minds — to the perfect pitch of God’s will or we can satisfy our human curiosities in prideful improvisations.  

 The world is a symphony of dissonance, a concert of competing voices, all crying to be heard.  Each song claims to have the answer. Only one song is true.  My life feels more and more cluttered with feedback and fuzz everyday.  My only hope is in that “still, small voice” that rings steadily through all the noise.  Lord, by your Spirit, write your loving ballad upon my heart, that I would never dance to another tune.  And Christ be the loving arms that lead me gracefully across the dance floor of this eternal ball.  Lead me, spotless and pure, to the rhythms of the Song of the Lamb, to the wedding banquet table, arm in arm, hand in hand.  Amen.

I have a song,

It tells the story of my life.

From fair weather ponds,

Through stormy waters of strife.

I have a band,

They strike the chords of my fate.

When tuned by the sovereign hand ,

One sweet melody they make.

 

I have a tendency

to play out of tune.

To entertain my curiosity,

 I shed my Maker’s cocoon.

In the midst of all life’s music,

One voice sings above the rest.

His song brings forth salvation,

All who join in shall be blessed.

The Lord is my melody,

All others lead astray.

My life is a concert,

But whose song will I choose to play?