11.26.13

"Hard Bargain"

I'm a bit run down but I'm OK

Just feel like callin' it a day

But you send me back to the start

You drive a hard bargain

 (title track of Emmylou Harris' 2011 Nonesuch Records album, song copyright 2004 Sony/ATV Music Publishing UK Limited, Ronboy Rhymes Inc., author)

Emmylou Harris' singing "Hard Bargain" sounds to me like the Apostle Paul wanting heaven, but Jesus' compelling love keeps sending him back to his missionary start.

Country music icon Emmylou Harris sings songs by the hundreds, over the decades.

Songs flow into her and out of her like breathing, each with a distinct story and message and mood.

It's like God has shared some of his unrelenting creativity with her.

If half of us Christians had one quarter of her creativity, the whole world would have already have heard the gospel.

I don't need to know the back story of "Hard Bargain"  to know that the God we serve also drives a hard bargain.

Once Jesus gets into us- he won't let us stay down- or lay down like a dog, or give up on his love, or love itself.

Instead, we learn his next lesson, sing his next song, and keep moving on the missionary road of life.

Emmylou Harris is proof of that.