Some say the mark of a real musical artist, rests on their ability to create a song that comes from the heart, a place of personal struggle that strikes a chord with others through genuine connection.

Singer-songwriter, Marc Scibilia, recently caught my attention for this reason with his song More to This (2024). There’s something about this song that asks the right questions. Its lyrics reveal an artist unafraid to probe into what many close their eyes to in their futile attempts to avoid the inevitable; death. There’s something very Dylanesk about the way Scibilia haunts his listeners through his voice and guitar work, but mostly it’s the way his lyrics penetrate surface level thinking, probing into questions of human purpose with words reminiscent of Ecclesiastes.

Marc sings:

I’ve been thinking about dying

and how that’s gonna be

When my skin and bones give up the ghost

and I finally feel my fragile soul

And all I am falls into mystery

By the time most of us reach middle age, life has thrown some heavy punches, experiences that stop us in our tracks, putting us face to face with age-old questions concerning life, death and the pain that accompanies each in their own seasons. There is no avoiding such realities. Ultimately, death affects every person, suffering enters everyone’s reality, and we are all brought to contemplation about the meaning or meaninglessness of it all.

Perhaps there is an even bigger question lurking beneath all such questions? Where is God in all of this?    

The author of Hebrews has something interesting to say concerning the way God works through difficult life experiences to ultimately draw us to himself, bringing each of us to a place where we hopefully cease to refuse Him who speaks (Heb 12:25).

Consider the words of Hebrews 12:26-28:

At that time his [God’s] voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”  

While these words from Hebrews may seem a little obscure without context, they clearly suggest God’s intentional action in shaking the very foundations of our lives until we finally have clarity around what is lasting and what is temporary. When God allows the foundations of our lives to be violently shaken, it’s not because he doesn’t care. Rather, he enters into that disruption to show that all worldly gain is like grass, here today and gone tomorrow. Ultimately, we can’t control anything. Youth lasts but a moment and an obsession to maintain it is futile, material wealth provides an illusion of stability until it doesn’t, knowledge can be built only until the mind deteriorates, all health is temporary, and death is inevitable.

For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone? (Ecclesiastes 6:12)

God knows all this to be true, and He wants us to come to that realisation. When our lives are shaken, when we are thrown into the chaos of life’s seeming unpredictability, Jesus Christ confronts us and asks the one question that really matters:

 Who do you say that I am? (Mark 8:29)

And depending on your response to being shaken with this question, Christ reaches out with a promise that can never be shaken, saying:

“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Mark 6:50)

When Marc Scibilia wrote the words to his song, we can only wonder about the situation that gave birth to the deep questions being asked. And I guess we will never know about the impact it had on his relationship with God. The strength of the song, however, is in its ability to become a part of our own experiences, for his questions to become ours. Life can and does shake us all to the core and when this happens, God wants us to know that He is right there with us, offering us His unshakable truth, the only foundation that will remain when all else fades away.