When I entered college I was not a Beatles fan. I grew up listening to the great female vocalists of the 80’s and 90’s like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion– not The Rolling Stones, The Who and definitely not The Beatles. It wasn’t that I was anti Beatles. I just didn’t go out of my way to listen to their music, but that changed entirely during my junior year in college. I took a class called Theory of Popular Music where all we did was analyze the music theory behind The Beatles’ songs using a book called Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles, and I was also in an ensemble that worked all year learning The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album. Both the theory class and the ensemble was taught/ led by one of my favorite professors ever who happens to be the biggest Beatles fan I know; my husband is a very close second.
Being the Beatles connoisseur that my professor is, he would often tell us fun facts and details related to The Beatles and their songs. He shared one story that particularly stood out to me and it is how the song “Nowhere Man” came to be. Apparently, John Lennon was experiencing writer’s block. He had been trying to write for five hours and nothing good had come to him. It was only when John finally gave up writing for the day and laid down that the song came to him like a sudden wave. In just an instant he went from being frustrated and songless to being able to write all of the words and music in a matter of minutes.
As a songwriter myself, I truly relate to John Lennon and his experience in writing “Nowhere Man.” There are very few people who can consistently write amazing songs in a matter of minutes with no revisions needed. I will go ahead and say that I am not that gifted as a songwriter yet. For me songwriting is a process that involves a lot of seeking and a lot of waiting. I am seeking the right chords, the right lyrics, the right melody, the right song structure, and I am waiting for it to all come together.
I can’t tell you how many nights I locked myself in a practice room until 2:00 to 3:30am in college to write a song. Most of the time I didn’t even write a full song– typically just a verse and a chorus. I would then walk my sleep deprived crazy self from the practice room to my dorm room and repeat this process a few nights a week. Usually when I would go back to write the goal was to finish a song that I had already started. Honestly though, writing a complete song was a rarity, as I would often accidentally write a new song during my practice time. I used to get really frustrated with myself, because the ratio of incomplete songs to complete songs was ridiculously higher. But now I realize that the pieces of songs I’ve written aren’t wasted. I had to exercise those muscles of seeking and waiting before having the ability to write a complete bomb song.
Revelation of God, understanding more of who He is, more of His ways and more of who we are in Him, is very similar to songwriting. Every time I seek Him, I gather a piece of the puzzle that God wants me to have. The more that I seek Him the clearer the image becomes, as each moment spent with God builds upon the next. I often seek God by spending time in His Word, because I know that every word is divinely inspired and can not steer me wrong. I’ve also had many “a-ha” moments after reading my Bible, and I look forward to receiving more exciting revelations from God. But do I have amazing divine moments everytime I open my Bible to read? NO! Of course I don’t. Sometimes I underline a verse and put question marks next to it, because I don’t understand what the verse means or its significance. But I CONTINUE to seek God by reading His word, so that I can get the revelation He has for me in due time.
Don’t be discouraged if you are seeking God and feel like things in your life and your walk with Christ haven’t changed yet. You’re simply in the waiting period, which means that revelation is closer than you think!
