As a member of my church choir, we get new music nearly every week. Often, we get songs that really hit home. “It’s Not Over” by Israel & New Breed is one of those songs that truly spoke to me. When we started rehearsal of this song, I didn’t like it. It was hard to sing and even harder to think about. “Not over.” Man, that thought just sits right in the middle of your wounds.
“Not over” begs the question about our problems; it reminds us of just how close we are to the precipice. “Over” is hard. “Over” feels bad. I don’t like “over.” But, something happened, the sun pierced the clouds, and like many of you, I realized that the Holy Spirit was moving my heart about this song. I realized that I have been telling myself this for years. At my worst times, I have thought, or even said, this very phrase. Then, I realized that in my law practice, where I often meet people on their worst day and see them at their worst, I give this “advice” all the time. It isn’t over. You can do this. This problem has a solution. We are in this together. Saying this phrase, I have looked in the eyes of strangers and these words have stitched us together in a fundamental, spiritual endeavor. It’s. Not. Over.
Thinking about the many people that I have said this to over the years, it struck me that I had been singing this song wrong for weeks. This song isn’t really a declaration of God’s power; it is an argument. It is an argument that I have made a thousand times. It is an argument with my doubt and the doubts of others. When we sing this song, we aren’t singing to God; God already knows it isn’t over. Instead, we are singing this song to our own hearts. We are singing to each other. We are singing it to each individual person in the congregation. We are singing to the husband who is losing his wife to cancer. We are signing to parents that are fighting a child’s addiction. We are singing to spouses who are going through divorce. We are singing to people losing their jobs, houses, and money. This song ministers to each of us on a fundamental, gut level, not our head knowledge and beliefs about what God will do, but rather, our back-breaking, ugly-face making, grief-stricken, just one more breath, please God, humanness.
Every time I have ever tried to convince a person in trouble that they can make it through, they have argued with me. Then, as things move forward, there is this place where we work together. Then, they doubt again, when things get hard. These movements of totally natural doubt during real-life battles are in all the movements of this song. We sing quietly at the beginning, stating the problem. Then, we confirm that God has it. Then the second verse tells us that we can – “something is changing, turning around.” Then, the doubt comes back in, and we sing, again and again, that it isn’t over. Even the timing of this song is an argument – when we move to the end of this song, we are singing, “it’s not over” just before the beat – just before each one of us doubts. It is anticipatory. Before you state the problem, it’s not over. Before you think the problem, it’s not over. With the truth of God’s faithfulness, our voices stop the doubt before it ever gets out. This is the power of this song. To reach into ourselves and our people, and to convince them with our voices that it is not over. Because it isn’t.
