What is the purpose of music?

Ever ask yourself why we make music? What's the point? What's the purpose of music? I think I'm more prepared to tackle this question than I've ever been in my life, and it's because I haven't been playing much music lately.

In the last few years I've played with a gospel/R&B group, a country band, a pair of singer-songwriters, and I've played in three churches as a guitarist for-hire. I've continued to play DNOWs and youth conferences and marriage retreats and weekly worship services.

In 2015, I played seven weddings. That was a weird experience—all my friends getting married in the same year…

But since leaving full-time touring in 2012, I've always wanted to go back. I've been able to play the guitar and play out a bit, but I'm always wrestling with the full-time job that takes priority.

Let's call this time my wandering in the desert. It's no 40 years and I'm no Moses, but what I see in the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert is that God often uses dry spells, wandering, and confusion to teach us valuable lessons.

Have you ever seen that map of all of the places the Israelites roamed? How they were walking in circles around their promised land the whole time? It's a bit silly but it shows that the journey, not the destination, matters most.

Here's a lesson I've learned in this dry spell, about the purpose of music.

I'm learning that I got into music for the people, not the music. I can just about listen to anything. I love music. I love all forms of it, with very few exceptions. But I don't love music for the individual characteristics of a particular genre.

I don't love music for interesting sounds, I didn't get into music for the joy of a good song—I can just as easily be entertained by a podcast or a book. I got into music for the people. I got into it because music is human expression.

And I love music because I love people.

I'm finding more and more that I'm in it to make connections, to express my humanity, and to share in experiences with others. Therein lies the purpose of music, to exercise the creative spirit inside us, as we're made in God's image and God is a creator.

It's to express the human experience and to convey human emotion in song. And to build community around rhythms we all feel, to carry a message on melodies that resonate with human hearts, to craft a culture one chord at a time. To harmonize and collaborate as co-creators and heirs to this creative spark inside each of us.

At least, I think that's the purpose of music.