Obsession

Obsession 




Production of this song started in November 2017. It’s about the desire and longing for answers to life’s meaning and purpose. The unvarnished truth is that it is an unsated obsession – I know of no other way to describe it.

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There seems to be this innate drive to find meaning and purpose in our lives. Maybe it’s because we are so short-lived. Some people think that we are just the culmination of random events without purpose and design – I suppose that that in itself also answers the question of the meaning of life for those persons: there is none.

Others are more attuned to the beauty, design and purpose of creation and so are more convinced that there is something more out there than random encounters of events. Someone expressed that idea in the Bible millenniums ago:

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16 (ESV)

And another writes:

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
Psalm 42: 1-2 (ESV)
There seem to be this vacuum in our hearts to be filed. If only we would allow ourselves to consider the possibility that as creatures of the Creator, He alone can unravel the mystery of our longing and sate it.

Obsession is a song (yes, rock song!) about finding our meaning and rest in God our Creator. I borrowed overtones from Augustine’s Confessions (Book One [emphasis mine]):

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. [roughly updated in modern English as: for You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in You]

You may access the entire book here at Project Gutenburg.

How, precisely, do we sate our obsession and find meaning and purpose in life? Jesus says that it’s only by selling everything we have, to buy that one thing of even greater value.

44“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Matthew 13:44-46 (ESV)

That one thing, is to be a member of the kingdom of heaven because it is God our Creator who gives us meaning and purpose. Membership is open to anyone who believes that Jesus Christ died for his/her sins and wants to put Christ as his/her Lord. Please click here to find out more about the good news of Jesus Christ.

I hope you’ll enjoy the song as much as I enjoyed producing it (not saying that there were no painful moments, but it is worth it).

There’s always a place for rock songs for Jesus our Rock : ) (1 Corinthians 10:4).


Petrus OMO Tan

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