It is a rare and rewarding experience when you download an album on release day, you listen to it on the commute to work, and instantly a song speaks to where you are at in your walk with God.

The theme of my personal blog is the "relentless passionate pursuit." I love Jesus, and as I walk through life with Him, I want nothing more than to serve Him passionately with all that I do. Lately, blogging and writing had become tiresome and began to feel like work. When I settled on the fact that I was going to write and blog regularly a few months ago, it was the furthest thing from work. It was a passion; it was an escape from the everyday and an opportunity to bless people and speak into their lives.

As the days passed and I saw mediocre growth in statistics, comments, subscribers, etc., it began to wear on me. For a brief moment, even the joy I got from being able to write music reviews for NewReleaseTuesday—to get those early releases and hear something special before anyone else—waned. I was not seeing a harvest. Was I not fulfilling a calling? Was something missing?

As I listened to the new album from Beautiful Eulogy titled Instruments Of Mercy, and the title track came on as a sat at the red light, a chord was struck.

The first verse of the song is described a glorious God is and what He does with our lives as we allow Him:

The same God who measured the waters in the hollows of His holy hands / Is the same God that uses broken man to expand His fixed plans / Sovereign, infinite, eternal personal and intimate / Independently playing the harp with various parts of our hearts instruments / A symphony of saints saved from sin singing spiritual songs / Pausing in awe, where praise and all applause belongs to God / Stretching and bending, pitch, pruning tightening and tuning / It's the residue of His resin that's the evidence of His divine choosing / Using the weather and the storm to conform us into the image of our glorious Lord / Scorn to compose a score being stitched together in melodious chord / It's the strumming and pressing of strings that momentarily stings / But in the end ultimately brings us to a place that causes our hearts to sing.

I realized in that moment that statistics, comments, subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, building a platform and creating a tribe isn't what this is about. What it is about is submitting to the Father, the great Creator of the greatest symphony I have ever heard. God is not only the Maestro, He is also the Virtuoso playing every instrument in the Orchestra. The instruments may be broken, or out of tune, but with his fine tuning He still is able to use me as an instrument of His mercy.

The chorus of the song is the prayer that struck me as I sat at that red light: "With Your hands, play Your song / Use my life I'm your instrument / Tune my heart to sing Your song / Use my life I'm Your instrument."

I just want to be an instrument for God to play. An instrument to spread the message of His mercy and grace. An avenue whereby people will be introduced to a God of grace, not a God of wrath. A God with whom we can have a relationship and not allow religion to get in the way. I want people to be on a relentless passionate pursuit.