An Experience of God in a Song

For a while now the song I'm Scared by Burton Cummings has been in my head.  The song is about Cummings going into a church while in New York and being overcome with emotion. He doesn't know why he is overcome, but he is, and it terrifies him.  This causes him to confess to the Lord that he's "Never been much on religion", but given what he is experiencing he wants to "Hear the call".

According to Wikipedia the song charted at #43 in Canada, which isn't bad.  It still gets a fair amount of air play in Winnipeg (It was released in 1976), but since Cummings is from Winnipeg that might not be a great indication of the lasting impact of the song.  Musically it is an important song as it helped bring about his leaving the Guess Who.  The story, as I understand it, is that he wanted them to record the song, they said no, so he left to record it on his own.  Obviously there would have been more going on there, but it is interesting that the song was important enough to him, to in some way, give impetus to leave the band he had so much success with.

I like the song because I think it is an honest expression of a real religious experience Cummings had.  We often think of religious experiences as those things that happen to a few chosen people; the clouds part, light shines down, and their life is changed forever.  I don't doubt such things do happen, but more often then naught I think Cummings experience is the norm.  An ordinary person is overwhelmed.  They cannot explain why, but it leaves them shaking, scared, because they understand something about the Lord that they did not before.  They are left in awe of the experience, and the One who brought it about.

It is this kind of experience that I think scripture is getting at when in Proverbs 9:10 it says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight."  These experiences give a new knowledge of God, you see Him in a new way because of them.  It is terrifying, it makes you fear God.

Fear is an interesting word.  Cummings doesn't use it directly in his song, but he speaks of being afraid and terrified.  The idea of fearing God seems outdated today but that is because we misunderstand what fear is.  When we think of fear we think of something that brings physical harm on us, we don't think of an awe of something, a respect for what something can do.  When scripture speaks of the fear of the Lord it's meaning is usually much closer to the awe and respect we feel when we see a lightening storm approaching then what causes us to lock our doors before we go to bed.

I think Cummings gets this.  He speaks of not only being terrified by the experience, but also of being confused, and of now wanting a sign from God.  His world has suddenly expanded to include something he has never experienced before and he needs a grounding.  He looks to God for that grounding.  That is not the actions of someone who thinks God will harm him, but it is the actions of someone who recognizes a bit more of the truth of who God is.

One experience like this does not usually make a religious convert, but it also doesn't leave the person the same as they were before.  With Cummings it was a powerful enough experience that is lead to this song; an explanation for us of what his experience with God felt like. I would have no problem singing his story of it in church.