Sunday 13 October 2013

Read All About It

There is a song by Emile Sande called Read All About It. On the surface, it seems like quite a random thing to mention - many people know this song, and it's not a particularly religious song. In fact, I doubt that its true meaning has anything to do with God. Despite this, this song really makes me think of my relationship with God - particularly the chorus.

It's often said that the Gospel is the Good News, and this is used to preach about, well, preaching; that when you have good news, you share it with others, so that if you have the Gospel - the ultimate Good News - why would you not want to share it with others?

This kind of argument is hard to argue against, despite the fact that for many reasons we find it hard to tell others about faith. We are scared of being seen as fanatical, or of being ostracised for our beliefs. Moreover, it's often easy to separate the Good News from good news. Your favourite sports team winning a match is obvious good news, and we can understand why we want to share it with everyone we know. The Good News of the Gospel, however, doesn't seem to feel like the same kind of good news. It doesn't quite give us the same feeling, even though it is, in fact, Good News indeed.

Yet even if we feel this way most of the time, the time will come when we feel particularly close to God - it might be when we're praying, it might be because of a verse we read that moves us, it might be during worship - and in that moment, we see the Gospel for the Good News that it really is.

Most of the time, when I feel close to God, I get an initial thought reaction. Mostly it's a prayer, or a religious song that I particularly like. However, a few months ago I found that my initial thought reaction was not any of these things - it was the chorus of Read All About It. In that moment, when the Good News felt like good news indeed, I wanted to share it; to scream, shout and sing.

That's what this song means to me now. It might mean different things to different people, but from that moment I now find it synonymous with my relationship with God, and that it is Good News indeed.

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