Dear Friend,
Allow me to begin by inviting you to join me in praying for a man who, although we have never met, has made an impact on my life since I was a teenager. The lyrics and melodies of Paul Simon have contributed significantly to the soundtrack of my life. I borrowed from one of his songs to try to convince the girl living three thousand miles away that I loved her: “My mind’s distracted and diffused, my thoughts are many miles away; they lie with you when you’re asleep and kiss you when you start the day.” It worked!
When the song “The Sound of Silence” began, “Hello, darkness, my old friend,” I wondered if Paul Simon had Psalm 88:18 in mind. What he imagined it would be like to be seventy he has now experienced, and into his ninth decade, his thoughts have turned to the psalms of David. His latest album is titled simply Seven Psalms.
According to Simon, this album came to him in a dream, causing him to reflect on matters of life and death, belief and unbelief. His lyrics are admittedly ambiguous as he struggles with the “big questions.” He appears to be someone searching, struggling with his humanity and not yet ready to bow before the One he wrestles to know. He is not alone in trying to figure this out. Our friends and neighbors are aware of God as revealed in creation and in their consciences, but unbelief has blinded their eyes—and like Paul Simon, they are unaware that God is a seeking God who opens blind eyes and softens hard hearts.
I wish that I could show my “friend” that in the Bible, Yeshua (Jesus) is the longed-for Messiah of the Hebrew scriptures. He is the answer to the great alienation which underlies the feelings of the character from the song “America” riding a Greyhound bus, feeling lost, empty, and aching and not knowing why, smoking and counting the cars to fill in the time. I long for the chance to explain the answer to that longing.
In the early ’70s, after his performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, a few of us made an attempt. We waited for him at the stage door to give him a Gospel tract, which he graciously accepted, promising to read it. More recently, after reading an article by David Brooks in the New York Times, he spent an evening with the late John Stott, reportedly considering the question “Is Jesus Christ the person He claimed to be? So the seeds have been sown, his dream has stirred him, and now we have the opportunity/responsibility to water those seeds by our prayers.
Pray that he will come to know savingly the One to whom the psalms of David point and to realize that “just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,’” so it is with those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Pray that he will no longer find darkness to be a friend but will come to trust in the One who said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
May he heed the call of the psalmist:
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”
Thank you for your ongoing partnership as we seek to teach the Bible in such a way that unbelievers will be converted, believers will be established, and local churches will be strengthened.
Come for a visit during these lovely summer months.
On behalf of all of us and with my love in the Lord Jesus,
