Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  -Psalm 103:1-5

This past Sunday, the Worship Team introduced a new song called 10,000 Reasons, which has, over the past couple months, become one of my favorite worship songs.  Today, I’d like to point out a few reasons I’ve been impacted by this song.

One, it’s musically and, more importantly, lyrically creative.  Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that there is “nothing new under the sun.”  Solomon, in making this statement, was operating with a historian’s mindset, if you will, and certainly not that of a scientist, inventor, artist, or composer.  And in a general sense, Solomon was absolutely correct.  Ultimately, God is the creator and we the created, and only God Himself can create in the ultimate sense of the word.  We are relegated to doing again and again that which others have done before us.  We may rearrange or repackage certain ideas, but, in the big picture, it’s all been done before.

However, with the view that God is Creator and is essentially creative, people are endowed with the ability to, to a degree, reflect that aspect of the Creator Himself, and in such a way that it brings Him glory when done with right motives.  Further, people are given the capacity to appreciate that which is aesthetically beautiful.  This is one reason music is so powerful a tool in impacting the emotional and volitional parts of a person.  Musical ideas constructed properly and in conjunction with biblical ideas creatively composed result in a song that effectively facilitates worship done with, one, understanding and, two, in spirit…two elements essential to true worship.

I believe 10,000 Reasons is one such song.  When it comes to the aesthetic properties of music, I understand this is entirely subjective.  However, regarding the aesthetics of a lyric, more specifically, the profundity of the content, this becomes a bit less subject to one’s opinions.  In evaluating a song intended for corporate worship, I find it useful to ask myself, “Has the writer simply restated that which has already been sung a thousand other ways, or has he/she managed to bring out a new idea or an old idea in a new and profound way?”.  When a writer challenges a worshiper to understand God in a way previously unknown, deeper worship is often cultivated.  10,000 Reasons points out that, when our day begins, we have a reason to praise the Lord, and when the sun sets, no matter what the day held, there’s still a reason to worship.  In fact, the reasons are endless and the goodness of God so vast that we will never in a lifetime run out of the reasons to praise the Lord.  For eternity, God will, in His infinite goodness, be the source of unending reasons to praise Him.

“For all Your goodness I will keep on singing…” is a line from the song.  Today make it a priority to praise God for His goodness; one, for that in the form of both physical and spiritual blessings, and, two, for His essentially and infinitely good character.  Seek diligently to understand, as the lyric states, all the goodness of God, and, in light of this, sing to Him with every moment of your life.