Music Minute - White Rabbit Edition!

Ok, so I'm late. This was supposed to go up this morning, but maybe it gave you a bit more time to answer the questions in our tasty "Five Minute Interview with YOU" post below. (Which you should do if you haven't already.)

So this week I thought I'd take a different tack and point y'all in the direction of a couple of great Christian music videos. If you've got a reasonably quick internet connection and a computer, you can watch these online.

First up is a great song and video from Tenth Avenue North. (The building that houses ec's offices is on 10th Ave. N in Nashville, so we like their name.) Their video is "By Your Side," produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—and it's a message of hope.

It's a sad fact of our culture that really big things that happen in our world tend to get bounced out of the top headline spot in the news when the next big thing comes along. Sure, Michael Jackson's funeral was gigantic news yesterday, but a month from now, we'll probably be talking about something else. At some point, there just isn't anything left to report. (Think about this: when was the last time you heard anything about Hurricane Katrina victims? Yet as a Nashville resident, I meet people all the time who moved here from New Orleans with nothing to start over. In some respects, they are still starting over.)

Going through such a big life event—losing everything, and God's faithfulness no matter what things look like—is really the theme of this video. It opens with a man talking about losing everything he had in a fire...sixteen years of his life gone. Another man talks about a flood, and a montage of disaster scenes including missing persons posters follows. There are two points to this song. One is that recovery takes time, time the news anchors don't often report on and we tend to forget. The other is that God is always by your side.

I don't know about you, but I need to remember that even when it's just teeny-tiny things going on in my life. And the song itself is beautiful, sparkly pop reminiscent of old-school Travis and Jars of Clay. Check it out. The video is here, and you can also listen here. And if you like it and want it for your very own, there's also an iTunes link.



If country-Americana music is more your thing, then a little Brandon Heath might be just the ticket. Fans of Ben Kweller and Ryan Adams will like "Wait and See," a sweet, rockin' reminder that God isn't finished with us yet.

Waiting is maybe one of the hardest things God ever calls on a Christian to do, and we usually end up doing a lot of it. In Isaiah 48 God even reminds us that He declares the end from the beginning—He's taking care of things—but it's still hard to wait.

And it's really easy for us to be painfully aware of our shortcomings before God. We don't become perfect Christians just because we get older. I can think of at least three things in my life right now where I'm asking God to give me faith to believe He's taking care of them (and I've been a Christian for 16 years). Faith is always a sort of journey away from ourselves and towards God. Knowing God isn't finished with you yet can help you feel a little bit better during those times you really feel like a work in progress.

You can also listen to Brandon's music here or find his music at the iTunes store.