Music and Me: Ordinary People - Cobhams Asuquo

It's another Wednesday!

Apologies for not posting last week's Music and Me.. Hope you loved and were blessed by the first 2 Music and Me posts? I was! If you didn't have the opportunity to read it, you can read HERE.

Music and Me is a music story book on the blog! We believe in the power of songs of praise and worship and more than that, in the act of worship itself. You can read a fuller introduction HERE.

Today's feature is given by one of my favourite guest writers on 1 + The One. Most of you know him by now so he needs no introduction.. You guessed right, it's the one and only Sebastian Luling aka Sebastian aka Chronicles of Sebastian, aka Sabba Sabba aka Sebs :-D

To be fair, as popular as Seb's song choice is, I had never actually listened to it. 

It is wonderful properly listening to the wonderful words of this amazing and very talented Musician, Producer and song-writer - Cobhams Asuquo as I write today's post :-)

I would leave Sebs to do justice to this beautiful song and tell us how it touches and inspires him! Music and Me people, let's go!

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My music library is quite a mixture of various songs: Michael W Smith’s “Awesome God” is followed by “Aye” (Davido), “Emmanuel” (Hillsong) comes straight after “Eminado”. Out of all these American, Nigerian and German songs I don’t have a “one and only favorite” song, but several ones that are dear to me. One of them is “Ordinary People” by Cobhams Asuquo - a Nigerian Christian song which is yet universal in nature. Let me give you two reasons why I love this song:

1.) The man behind the song: The first time I heard about Cobhams Asuquo was when I stumbled upon a strange Youtube video titled “The Gift of Blindness” . I was like “Please, how can blindness be a gift?”. However, four minutes into his speech, I was mesmerised by the authentic, powerful and deep words of a man who had to overcome so much in life and who seemed to be genuinely happy, witty, resourceful, and who was living his life to the fullest - despite his lack of sight!! He talked about how blindness helped him to not excuse himself, to trust people (no matter what), to focus on the important; all of it struck a nerve with me. Even though he never mentioned God in his speech (it was a secular conference), I could tell that this man was somehow connected to a deeper source driving him. A few months later I found out I was proven right, as I listened to his song “Ordinary People”, which I liked immediately…

2.) The message of the song: As I stated HERE, many of us desire to be famous and somehow special. Sometimes I am carried away by thoughts like “Oh, how awesome would it be to speak to such crowds”, “Oh wouldn't it be amazing to publish a book ”, and I imagine myself as someone 'expanding the kingdom'. All these ideas are quite common in a world where we celebrate the extraordinary, the super-pastors, the world changers. While a few might be privileged to do just that, most of us still have to live quite ordinary lives: we have to write exams, go to work, get along with mothers-in-law hehe, and make ends meet. That’s why I love this song so much! Asuquo sings about ordinary people - a child playing in the rain, a construction worker coming home from work, two parents going to church - all of these can make an impact just by living life the way God wants them to, as the chorus suggests:

Let us have a world of ordinary people
Living life the way God wants us to
If we have a world of ordinary people
Extraordinary things would happen to me and you

The stories he tells in his song, the biblical examples he gives and the pictures he uses in his (incredible!) music video inspire me to be faithful each day, instead of just daydreaming about stardom. "Life will be much better“ if we paid attention to these small ordinary things and live out our day-to-day ordinary life with the passion, faith, love and hope God gives us. So if you have 5 minutes and some Megabytes to spare, have a look at his video and convince yourself:

The powerful combination of an inspiring song sung by an equally inspiring man makes this “ordinary song” quite “extraordinary” for me. :-)

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While preparing this post, I had the song on repeat and as I read Sebastian's post, I couldn't but be gingered. Such a powerful song - letting us understand that each and everyone of us have the capacity to achieve extra-ordinary things and lives by living and doing 'ordinary' things, but in a way ordained by God.

You might feel like you're not that much because you're not on a big platform or with a wide audience. Perhaps it may be that you view yourself in comparison to others and you come lacking because you're not doing the 'BIG' things they seem to be doing. Well, thank God you are sooo wrong! God has invested greatness in every single human being and it is important and so wonderful to know that being where God wants you to be and doing what He wants you to do (no matter how insignificant it may seem) makes you do extraordinary things!

You being YOU is a blessing to many people. Somebody needs you to be YOU to be blessed. Never ever despise small beginnings, you never know just how extraordinary it is.

So, if you need a dose of encouragement to 'ginger' your spirit that indeed you are capable of extraordinary things, then please turn this song on and play it on maximum volume, until it sinks right in "Extraordinary things will happen to me and you" :-) 

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Would you like to share yours too? Remember it could be a song that struck something in you when you listened to it, it could be a song or worship that you used during a down-time in your life and it made a huge difference, it could be a song that takes you into the 'God-zoneee', it could be a song that helps you express what mere words cannot quite convey, it could be a song that brings a zest and zing to your heart and steps whenever it comes up!

Each song will be accompanied by a story, introduction or reason why it is the choice of the week..

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