Arise and Shine

             About twenty years ago, Jude led worship at our inner-city church.  The pastor placed huge significance on worship and really believed in Jude.  She made her the worship leader without ever hearing her sing.  I don’t remember the circumstances, but from a flesh perspective, while leading worship, she invented a song.  She never heard it or wrote it or rehearsed it.  It just came to her as she was playing music.  No one ever heard the melody and she invented lyrics as she played.  It was the most beautiful song ever played in that church while I was there, and the spiritual atmosphere of the room shifted.  The song was called Mourning into Dancing.  What she did, even before we knew what it was, was called prophetic worship.  It is when the Spirit manifests in the earth with a song.  About four years later, Jude’s mom paid for her to record her first CD.  All the songs were great but there were a couple I absolutely loved.  One of them was Arise and Shine.  This was a duet with a young woman who went to the next church we attended and was on the worship team.  She became pregnant out of wedlock and was suspended from the worship team for moral reasons.  Jude took her on as a little sister and ministered to her.  Jude asked her to sing with her on Arise and Shine because she loved this young woman and wanted her to know that God still loved her and believed in her. 

            About five years ago, I started collecting worship songs on Youtube and putting them in a playlist. There are tens of thousands of praise songs that have lyrics and backgrounds just like the display churches use for their service.  I did not sing the songs, but I danced every morning with my flags because I am not a good singer.  After I got sick, and started praying again, I wanted to worship. I could not walk so I could not dance.  I would cast these Youtube videos  to my TV, and raised the volume so that I could not hear my voice as I sang.  Preveniently, I had a whole collection of worship songs to use.  I tried to find new songs and was incredibly dissatisfied with them.  God invented music and instruments and skill.  In Heaven, Revelations describes unbelievable songs.  How come most praise songs suck?  How is it that Kanya West and Beyonce have better songs than those in the spirit?  At that point I wanted Jude’s CD.  Her songs were not about how righteous we already are but how desperate.  They had a theme to the lyrics and came from the Tori Amos genre.  I loved them.  I asked Jude for the CD about ten times but she could not find it.  I inevitably found the CD on one of my cloud and immediately played Arise and Shine on the Bluetooth speaker as loud as possible.  I remember being so excited when I pressed play. 

            Weeks before, Seth and I went to see my main practitioner, Erica Shanks.  I was still going to St. Vincent every week, having my stomach drained.  My mind was so focused on overcoming colitis and getting strength back to do normal things, I did not put the ascites in any context.  As I was getting better with everything else, I asked her how much longer will I have to be drained, thinking this will go away like everything else.  She basically said for the rest of your life which will be about two years if you don’t get a transplant. 

            Sometime, within a month of that appointment, Seth took me to get drained, and my stomach was completely empty.  There was no liquid.  I have not been back since.  My X-ray, later, came back showing no signs of ascites. 

            As I was listening to the song, it fulfilled all my expectations as Jude and her friend harmonized.  Beautiful.  Then my favorite part came up. 

            First, Jude went off, (which I always loved), serenading without words.  It sounds, I imagine, like angels screaming as they went into battle. It’s a signature sound that is solely hers.  I have never heard Beyonce or Adele or Celene Deion do it.

Then the lyrics: 

           

Wake up for your slumber. Wake up.  Wake up from your slumber.

            Don’t let the grave clothes keep you down, Arise

            Don’t let the enemy hold you back, it’s time to Arise.

            You shall live, you shall not die, Arise

Its your time for you to shine, Arise

Arise

Its time for you to shine

 

But when the song got to “You shall live, you shall not die,” I swear, it was like God singing it to me.  I went to the couch immediately and began to cry (would have gone to my knees but I don’t think I could have gotten back up). 

I don’t know if anyone knows this because I have never mentioned it, but I have read the bible over fifty times.  I thought I basically was familiar with every verse in the bible but I have never read the verse that this song is based on. 

I called Jude and asked her why she wrote those lyrics at the end of the song and she said she didn’t.  She “invented” them on the spot.  All of those lyrics were prophetic worship, a manifestation of heaven.  Each line in the lyrics I shared is a prophetic message for me today, fifteen years later.  They are each tied to scripture.  Each line, I could write a book about it (Isaiah 31:9-10; John 2:11; Daniel 10; the parousia .  I took this as the Spirit singing to me.  God gifted me a song.  If that is true, God gave it to me fifteen years before I made my bed in the depths.  Before I got sick because of the consequences of my own sin; before five doctors told me I was going to die.  God knew what He was buying and already planned my redemption before I ever needed it.

I didn’t watch college football this weekend.  I remember being in pain all summer waiting for the season to begin since my twenties.  I always loved it.  When the season started, I would be filled with joy…until the Vols lost to Florida.  I didn’t watch this weekend because I thought it would trigger me or because I am turning over a new leaf and have put away the old self.  I didn’t watch because I forgot it was on.  I was already overflowing with joy. 

I have programmed my google mini to play Arise and Shine every morning.  Kanaan hears it and wakes up and just comes to love on me.

I created this video so that I could add it to my worship sings to praise God during my prayer time but I can never sing to it.  I always end up closing my eyes and listening.

Ephesians three states the secret of being a Christian and pleasing God is to know how much He loves you.  If we truly knew that love, just for the taste of Him, we would go through brick walls and swim seas and scale mountains.  Nothing would stop us.  If it takes supernatural manifestations of the Spirit to discover that love, this song is one of the greatest manifestations of His love I have ever experienced.