(Excerpt) – “We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly sitting and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, ‘Hi.’ He pounded his fat baby hands on the high chair tray. His eyes were crinkled in laughter and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin, as he wriggled and giggled with merriment ….
God’s Cricket Chorus
Psalm 96 says “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth … Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad … Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
There is something soothing about listening to crickets serenading on a hot summer night. As I listened, I’d sometimes sit back and reflect on God. Can you hear the creator in nature’s architecture?
In a Huffington Post article dated November 22, 2013 entitled “Crickets Slowed Down Sound Like Angels Singing”, the Huffington Post said “If there was ever proof that God does indeed speak through small things, bend an ear to the humble cricket.” A recording artist, Jim Wilson, recorded crickets slowed way down. It is juxtaposed with the natural beauty of crickets chirping unaltered on a separate recording track. Interestingly, when the second track is slowed down by using a digital sampler machine, it sounds like an angelic choir.
In an interview with Jim Wilson, Tom Waits commented that “it’s like a sweeping chorus of heaven, and it’s just slowed down. They did not manipulate the tape at all.” It is amazing. Watch the video below. It is as if we are hearing God’s creatures sing in awe of and in remembrance of who their creator is.
http://youtu.be/of90IEoE-IM
Not just the crickets, but it says all the earth sings His praises (Psalm 148).
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds
kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
young men and women,
old men and children.
Copyright 2013 by Bill Hutzel
Proof that you love someone / Love and Marriage
“The proof that you love someone is not that you have warm affectionate feelings toward them. The proof is in your actions, your words and your sacrifice, your willingness to give the best of yourself and your willingness to get nothing in return.” ~Katherine Walden
Love is not always a warm and cushy feeling that we have for the other person. It is not always the picture of Cupid with his quiver of arrows who shoots you and you fall madly in love with desire. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were always portrayed that way, or as in the song That’s Amore by Dean Martin – “When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, That’s Amore“.
Rather, at times, it seems Cupid’s arrows seem to pierce our heart and we fall madly out-of-love. For a shocking number of marriages in America today, “till death do us part” is merely a dream unfulfilled because they fail to embrace God’s Word pertaining to love. According to a McKinley Irvin study, in America, there is one divorce every 13 seconds. That is 6,646 divorces per day, and 46,523 divorces per week. That translates to roughly 50 percent of 1st marriages that get divorced; 60% of 2nd marriages that get divorced, and 73% of 3rd marriages that get divorced. However, when couples prayed together on a daily basis, less than 1% of those couples would end up getting divorced.
I believe that love is a decision that we make. For a relationship to be a lasting love, each person in a marriage must sacrifice and work together for the sake of love and the relationship, and surrender their wills to God. Paul Stookie of Peter, Paul and Mary said it so aptly in his “Wedding Song” where he sang “The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain, For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name There is Love, there is Love.” Click on the link to this song and see if it doesn’t bring tears to your eyes. For some they will be joyful tears because their love is a lasting love; for others they will be sorrowful tears because their love has slipped away. Don’t let what God has joined together be torn apart because you fail to give the best of yourself or that you fail to embrace God in your marriage.
PRAYER: God, help us to be patient and kind; help us to not envy or boast, nor be arrogant or rude to one another. Help us to not insist on our own way, or be irritable or resentful towards each other. Help us to not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Copyright 2013 by Bill Hutzel
Search Me O God
“Search Me O God” song and video by Bill Hutzel
I had recently just become unemployed following the attack of 9/11, and was understandably anxious, desperately wanting to make sense of both the war on our country, and wanting to find gainful employment again. And so I became very introspective when things turned topsy-turvy on me. I opened my Bible to Psalm 139 and the following verse spoke to me. “Search me O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any hurtful way in me”. It became my meditation.
But as I meditated, I thought, God does know my heart. Why would the psalmist ask Him to search his heart? Why would anyone ask God to search their heart? But I knew the answer. It was because God knew me better than I did, and God wanted to reveal the deepest parts of myself. Do you have the courage to ask God to expose the depths of your heart, to see if there be any hurtful way in you?
The psalmist David earnestly wanted to know what was in his heart so that God would refine him as fire refines gold. It is a hard prayer to pray, although, for if we are honest with ourselves, many of us would rather not face our deepest canyons.
We run and we hide from God saying,
7 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”
If I say 11”Surely the darkness will hide me”, it will not.
If I go up to the heavens, He is there; if I make my bed in the depths, He is there.
Should you, however, being purified by Christ who indwells you, take heed of the Holy Spirit’s tugging at your heart to govern your flesh, you will be changed. It is God’s desire that we earnestly seek Him, and that He search our heart so that He might prove us by His Word and reveal to us any hurtful way, and that He would root it out, for godliness is pleasing to Him, and in the end, profitable to us. Romans 8:6 says “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace”.
As I continued to meditate on this psalm, my prayer turned to asking God to guide me and extend His hand to me. My prayer turned into singing, and “the praise on my lips and the song in my heart” became a song that ran through my head to the words of the psalm. I jotted down the melody so as not to forget it. I later recorded it in October of 2013.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
May God’s search light break through the dark clouds that storms will doubtless bring. May His beacon light be your salvation, His strong light into your heart, that you may be guided to safety and spiritual well-being. And may the song in your heart and God’s praise continually be on your lips.
Copyright 2016 by Bill Hutzel
CREDITS
Composed by Bill Hutzel
Performed by The Throwbacks
Musicians
Bill Hutzel, Vocals and Flute
John D’Elia, 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars, bass guitar, mandolin, tambourine
Recorded and produced by John D’Elia
SuchClay Productions
September 18, 2013
Video Produced by Bill Hutzel
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Pick Me Up
The song and video “Pick Me Up” was inspired by Psalm 30. So often we fancy ourselves as secure, and think we can go it all alone. But when God hides His face from me because I choose to go it on my own, my soul cries out to Him to “Pick Me Up, and turn me around … Lord set me free, for I’ve been going it on my own, now it’s time for me to come home, Help me get my feet back on the ground.”
David too had a propensity for going it on his own for he said “When all was well with me, I said, I will never be moved”. In Psalm 30:7-11 it says that David then asked for God’s mercy as he was shaken because God turned his face from him. God being compassionate, then lifts David from his troubles, turns his crying into dancing, and establishes his feet with joy on God’s firm foundation again.
What Pick Me Up verses in the Bible are you reminded of? What pick me up life experiences can you share?
Song by Bill Hutzel and John D’Elia
Arranged, produced and recorded by John D’Elia
Such Clay Productions
Performed by The Throwbacks
Bill Hutzel, vocals, flute and keyboard
John D’Elia, electric and bass guitars
Prayer: Though you have allowed me to experience much trouble and distress, revive me once again! Bring me up once again from the depths of the earth! (Psalm 71:20). Lord, help me get my feet back on the ground.
Copyright 2014 by Bill Hutzel