There’s a song by Hillsong United that comes up on one of my Spotify playlists called So Will I. I’ve really come to love this song. It's rich. The lyrics say so many beautiful and deeply meaningful things. But there’s a verse in this song that has really caught my attention lately.
And as you speak
A hundred billion creatures catch your breath
Evolving in pursuit of what you said
If creation still obeys you, so will I.
The line that has really been swirling around in me since the first time I heard it is evolving in pursuit of what you said.
Wow.
Think about that for a moment.
Think about what that is really saying.
Each part of creation was made to respond…to grow…to mature…to change…to become… to evolve according to the Word that God speaks. And it’s not a passive involvement. Creation evolves in pursuit of what God has said.
In other words, God has said to His creation, “You will be, and you will do, and you will produce this particular thing with your life. This is your purpose. This is what I have created you for. Be and become what I have created you to be.”
And each part of creation evolves accordingly. It just can’t help but do that. Creation does what it was created to do.
And then there’s me.
I listen to those lyrics and wonder…
When He speaks, am I catching His breath?
Am I evolving in pursuit of what God has said—what He has said in His Word…what He has said to me through His Spirit?
Or am I evolving in pursuit of what I have said—in pursuit of my selfish desires, in pursuit of an ideal that is simply based on a comparison of myself to others, or in pursuit of what is comfortable and makes sense to me?
Am I evolving in pursuit of what others have said—what culture says, or what the world says I am supposed to believe and become?
The longer I walk with Christ, the more I realize how much more evolving I need to do. The simple tendency to begin comparing myself to others, to reach for worldly status, or to think I know best and that I can function apart from God says it all. These tendencies reveal the need I have to tune in to the truth God speaks, and then listen, respond, and evolve in conformation to what He says.
I’ve heard some say that Christianity should evolve away from what the gospel writers wrote because there is no way they got it all right. It’s a perspective that seems to promote that we—those of us who are living and breathing now—know something more than what the writers of Scripture knew, and, therefore, we should evolve in pursuit of what we can comprehend now and what makes sense to us now.
But Scripture is not what needs to change. And the truths we find there are not to be discarded. It’s not what needs to evolve.
WE are the ones who need to change—to evolve—to become what God has spoken.
God’s Holy Spirit has spoken into the hearts and minds of men and women and children through Scripture for generations. Millions of individuals have been transformed because they saw that they needed to conform to the life and love and character of God that was revealed in Scripture and in the life of Jesus Christ—not the other way around.
God speaks straight into the heart of anyone who chooses to listen to what He would say.
It’s stunning to me… STUNNING… that God would speak directly to us. Sometimes He speaks as we read His Word in Scripture. Sometimes He speaks as we sit in prayerful silence and listen. And sometimes we hear a song, and His Spirit speaks to our spirit, and we know it’s a truth we need to listen to and absorb.
God is speaking.
Are you catching His breath? Are you evolving and conforming in pursuit of what He’s said?
The rest of creation is.
And I certainly want to be a part of that.
If creation still obeys you, so will I.
