Hearing His Love in an Ordinary Song

Even in the middle of an ordinary chore, God can remind us that His love is near.

I was mowing the grass with music playing through my noise cancelling headphones, not thinking about anything too deep. Just the usual rhythm of pushing the mower, turning at the end of each row, and trying to keep the lines somewhat straight.

I wish I could remember the song that started it.

That part still bugs me a little, because it was the spark. A song came on, and as I listened, something in me shifted. It was not a Christian song. It was not written for church. But something in it made me think, if this was turned toward God, it would sound like prayer.

While the mower kept humming along, my mind went back to a Welcome weekend I had helped lead.

On those weekends, after someone gives a witness, a song is usually played. I do not know if that began as something written in a manual or if it simply became part of the tradition over time, but it has become meaningful. The song is not just background music. It becomes a kind of echo of the witness.

Most of the time, the song connects closely to the person’s story, the subject of the witness, or the grace God was revealing through it. A lot of people choose contemporary Christian music or classic Christian songs. When I gave a Reconciliation witness, I chose songs like Forgiven by Crowder and Redeemed by Big Daddy Weave, because those songs spoke directly to mercy, confession, and being made new.

So, when one guy chose Everything I Do by Bryan Adams, it stood out to me.

It was not wrong. It was not out of place. It was just different from the songs I had heard on the other weekends I had served. On the surface, it was a love song. A song many people would connect with romance, marriage, or memory.

Then he explained why he picked it.

It had been his and his wife’s song. That was where it started. A song tied to their life, their marriage, and the love they had shared. But somewhere along the way, it had also become something more for him. It had become a song that spoke to his relationship with God.

At first, I heard it the way he did. A husband’s love for his wife. Then I understood how it could become a soul speaking to God. A man offering everything. A man saying, in his own way, Lord, my life is Yours.

But then something else happened.

As I listened, I heard it from the other side. Not me singing to God, but Jesus speaking to me.

The witness he had given was about the Eucharist. That matters, because the Eucharist is where Jesus gives Himself to us completely. Not partly. Not symbolically. Not from a distance. He gives us His Body and Blood. He gives us His whole self.

So as that song played, I started hearing it through that lens. A song about giving everything suddenly pointed toward the One who actually did.

Jesus held nothing back.

He gave His time. He gave His mercy. He gave His teaching. He gave His healing. He gave His friendship. Then He gave His Body on the Cross, and He still gives His Body to us in the Eucharist.

That is not just love as an idea. That is love made visible.

At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” (Luke 22:19)

For you.

Those two words matter. The Eucharist is not general love floating somewhere above us. It is personal. Jesus gives Himself for the Church, yes, but also for each soul who comes to Him hungry, tired, wounded, grateful, ashamed, hopeful, or afraid.

He gives Himself for me.

That is what made the song feel different. It was not that the song suddenly became a hymn. It was that the love underneath it started pointing higher. Human love, when it is faithful and sacrificial, can teach us something about divine love. Marriage can do that. Parenthood can do that. Friendship can do that. Even an ordinary song, heard at the right moment, can remind the heart of something eternal.

Saint John says it simply: “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

That line helps me understand what happened. The love between a husband and wife is real. The love of a soul reaching toward God is real. But before either of those, there is the love of God reaching toward us.

That is the part I forget sometimes.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how I need to love God better. I need to pray more. I need to surrender more. I need to put Him first more. All of that is true. But before I ever loved Him, He loved me. Before I ever sang to Him, He had already spoken love over me.

And Scripture even gives us that image.

“The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior, who will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, who will sing joyfully because of you.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

God rejoices over us.

That is hard for me to take in. I can understand singing to God. I can understand hymns at Mass and worship music in the car. I can understand using music to lift my heart toward Him. But the thought that God delights in us, that He renews us in His love, that He rejoices over His people, that is almost too much.

But maybe that is exactly what I needed to hear.

God’s love is not trapped inside church walls. It is found most fully in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, but His love is not absent from the ordinary parts of life. He can reach us while we are driving. While we are working. While we are washing dishes. While we are mowing the grass with music playing in our ears.

It is like finding an old note tucked inside a book you have opened a hundred times. The book was always there. The note was always there. But on that day, in that moment, you finally notice it. And suddenly something familiar feels personal.

That is how the song felt to me.

It reminded me that God’s love is everywhere, not because everything is holy in the same way, but because He is always near. He is always calling. Always giving. Always finding ways to remind us that we are loved.

Sometimes that reminder comes through Scripture. Sometimes through the Eucharist. Sometimes through a witness on a weekend. Sometimes through a song we did not expect.

I still wish I remembered the song that came on while I was mowing. Maybe it will come back to me. Maybe it will not. But maybe the exact song was not the point.

The point was that I was listening.

And for a moment, in the middle of a normal chore, I remembered something I should never forget.

Jesus gives everything.

Everything He does, He does out of love.