The day after I wrote “True” I found this masterpiece, written by my 5 year old son.
It’s the latest in a string of wonderfully misspelled creations by the comedy genius that is Ezra – his “ants go marching two by two” had me in stitches, I tell ya.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Colin Buchanan song God Rock, but it’s about standing firm on the Lord, our rock. The words to the chorus are, “God Rock, get on board the God rock; unbreakable, unshakeable, God Rock.” So while I’ve been hearing Ezra singing along to this and thinking how nice it is that he’s learning all about how God is our rock and all other ground is sinking sand, etc., well he actually hasn’t.
When I wrote before that some children are more spongey than others, I was thinking of Ezra. He has an incredible ability to learn song lyrics. The other day he taught me the order of the minor prophets without blinking. I have Randall Goodgame to thank for that. But clearly even Ezra mishears the words sometimes. And, like everyone else in the world, when he wasn’t sure he just guessed. (Many of us then Google it but he’s thankfully not old enough to Google things yet.) So this is just a reminder to all of us that it’s good to check every now and again that our children actually understand what they’re singing. Especially when so often things are metaphorical. I can feel myself going into another long post about this so will stop myself.
I just need to say, though, that we can’t do this every time. A friend of mine with 3 under 4’s said to me one day that she’d love to teach her children the Bible more, but some days all she has the energy to do is to stick on a CD of Christian music. She clearly felt that this was a failure on her part. I looked at her and thought, ‘what a fantastic woman you are.’ If in your less wonderful moments all you can do is put on a Christian CD, then praise God. I’m not saying that we all need to have a comprehension test after each song. But just to have it on our radars that the children will sing along regardless of whether they have a clue what they’re singing. Even if they get the words right, they might not know what “rejoice” “dwell” or “redeemer” actually mean… (signing off now, despite desperate desire to keep going!).
It would amuse me greatly if you could comment and let me know any funny mistakes your children (or you) have made with Christian song lyrics.
Mum in Zone One 
So Stephen Knott when he was younger, during a downpour, ran to the window and declared with much delight ” Look mummy, our God rains”.
I can’t remember the song, but it would have been around 1995, we sang it at Spring Harvest, and the only word I could fit in (thought people were singing) was ‘centreparc’. Thank you for your blog, although I don’t often comment still like reading them.. Am impressed with your friend even putting on a christian cd. It’s more than I usually do !
Hi, thanks for your encouragement! How intriguing, I wonder what the word really was. Set apart?!
Yes well isn’t it great that is all else fails we have Colin Buchanan et al! I often listen for my own benefit as much as the children’s!
Tom kept saying ‘keep your legs burning’. I finally figured out he meant ‘lamps’! Slugs and Bugs is great for chat, though it took a long while for me to think of something meaningful to say about the alien song!
Ha ha, well unless you know the parable, legs makes at least as much sense as lamps!
With the alien song (Deut 14.21) I did manage to tell my daughter that although we are now free to eat anything, the verse shows us that God wants his people to be different from those around them, and also to bless those around them (the aliens). But with my 3 yr old son that may have been a bit much! I might just get away with, “we can eat roadkill now because Jesus washes us clean on the inside!”
But the raisins song on Sing the Bible 2 is just plain silly!