Not Far Gone

Listen to Never Too Far Gone on Spotify. Jordan Feliz · Song · 2016.

Jordan Feliz is one of my favorite artists because he does a wonderful job of tackling tough issues and circumstances while uplifting the people struggling through them.  In “Never Too Far Gone,” Feliz gives hope to those who feel far away from God, who have done wrong, who have hurt others, who have hurt themselves, and reminds them that there’s no place they can be physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually that God does not have covered in His loving presence.

The message of this song describes how, even when we run away from God, it takes only one step in the right direction to be back in His loving embrace. It takes only one action to be forgiven, only one action to be found, to be caught.

People all over the world are currently lost or in the process of losing themselves. Some may be stumbling around in the dark already, dazed, confused, blind, in despair and unable or unwilling to call out for someone to turn on the lights. Some are sprinting at a breakneck speed away from the light because it stung their eyes, and they think they will find comfort in the darkness.

There are two images I get from the lyrics in Feliz’s song. The first is kind of like a chase scene in a horror/slasher movie. If you’ve ever seen one, you know that the protagonist is sprinting as fast as possible away from the killer, who often appears to be casually walking, but never seems to lose him. No matter how fast the protagonist runs, nor how cleverly he disguises his path, the killer is always there.

In a way, that’s kind of what running from God is like. No matter how far or fast you run, God’s always right behind you waiting for you to slow down and give in, to recognize that it’s not a killer who’s after you, rather, in a parody of a horror/slasher situation, it’s a friend and guide who wants to help you escape from death.

I imagine that it might feel scary or daunting in some ways to those who only see the bright light of God from the darkness, who have never experienced the warmth and love that His light provides. And I personally think we don’t give enough credence to the fact that God can be scary to people who don’t know Him—Christianity can be scary to people who don’t truly know it, who have only ever seen it from the outside, or maybe just experienced the worst parts of believers and the church.

The second image/scenario I envision involves a large room filled with swirling darkness. The darkness ebbs and flows and changes constantly, seeking to block people in the room from seeing the light shining from the exit. The darkness is disorienting and confusing, causing those within to stumble and wander, losing all sense of direction. Even if they manage to spot the light, the suffocating darkness moves to cover it up, leaving them without a clue which way to go. But the God of light does not need to stay at the doorway; when someone calls out from the darkness, He goes to them, cutting a swath through the darkness with His light, picks them up, and carries them to the exit.

I don’t have to imagine reality for this scenario; I’ve been through things just like it. I’ve tried to walk myself out of the darkness of emotional and mental health struggles. I’ve tried to walk myself out of the suffocating room wherein I feel trapped. I’ve tried to combat my sin and temptation on my own. But it was only when I called out to God that He carried me free of those things.

In Sunday School this week, we touched on a related topic as we discussed grief and other hard-hitting emotions: the idea that Jesus, that God, has felt everything we could feel. And that’s true. We can attribute this experience of Jesus to His suffering and death on the cross. In those moments of His death, He felt every last bit of every sin. Before yesterday morning, I had never really given thought to the idea that Jesus had felt the same shame, guilt, failure, etc. that I’ve felt, that you’ve felt, that we’ve all felt. Not just that He has felt shame, guilt, failure,

Whenever I thought about Jesus being able to relate to me, I always dwelled on things in general; I never made the emotional, relational connection specific to me. But when He died on that cross, He felt all the bad, the things that God doesn’t, can’t, shouldn’t feel. A perfect God can feel no shame or guilt, but He did. He suffered under the weight of guilt for us. He suffered the load of shame for us. He suffered the pain of failure for us.

And He did not just generically feel those things. He felt the exact shame I feel whenever I give into lust or anger. He felt the guilt of each time I sinned and knew I was doing it. He felt the weight of every failure I have committed. Why? So He could chase us down, seek us out, pick us up, and show us with the scars on His hands, His feet, His side, and His head that we are not too far gone to be rescued.

Not Your Mistakes

One of the greatest lies of the world is that you are what you do. This sentiment is expressed in hundreds of arguments, such as “well, I’m a good person, so I’ll get to heaven,” or, “he cheated on her, so karma will get him,” or even in seemingly innocuous phrases like, “once a thief, always a thief.”

But the Bible tells us that what you do is merely a product of who you are, of how you think, of where your heart is. Sin comes from a broken heart that is focused on selfish pleasures. Goodness comes from a heart that is the home of Jesus Christ. But another thing the Bible tells us is that, when you are saved from your past, you are saved into a new being, one that is defined not by who you are, but by the God who has claimed you.

I briefly touched on this topic last week with Casting Crowns’ “Who am I,” but I wanted to expand on the idea of God’s claim on us and how a life after that moment can look from Tenth Avenue North’s “You Are More.”

There's a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she's wandered
And the shame she can't hide

She says, how did I get here?
I'm not who I once was.
And I'm crippled by the fear
That I've fallen too far to love

Here are some thoughts that, personally, I’ve had before. And I think many people probably have thought some of these things. Constantly, I think back to choices I made that I would like to have again to change who I am now. I can pinpoint the day and the time that caused me problems for ten years and changed who I was, and who I became to be. And I think many people feel this way, and the fear that comes from these thoughts can be incredibly crippling when you try to move forward.

Sometimes, it feels like you’ve messed up one too many times. And I actually think that’s something we don’t discuss a lot in the Christian community, especially if you grew up in church. We have a problem of trying to tackle actions and past choices but not actually discussing and confronting the issues that are from the heart and the mind. And pardon me for saying it, but that’s kind of pharasaical.

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade

Two things I love about this: it covers the past mistakes and the current problems that are created. For believers, who you are is not found by adding up every choice you’ve ever made. You are not your thoughts and your actions combined. You are not defined by your sins or your good works. And you are most certainly not defined by the sinful thoughts and actions you still struggle with. As a follower of Christ, you have been spiritually and mentally remade, formed into something new.

Well she tries to believe it
That she's been given new life
But she can't shake the feeling
That it's not true tonight

And here’s where we get into the practical application of this song and the message I’m bringing tangentially through it. Even when you know you’ve been given a new life. Even when you know that God has saved you and you know the results of that, sometimes, you still doubt. Maybe you don’t doubt God, but you doubt that you’re doing the right things, that you’re thinking the right way.

And here’s the important thing: these things don’t just magically go away when you get saved. The process of sanctification, of being made like Jesus, isn’t immediate. It takes time for you to be fully transformed, some people take longer than others. And these doubts will always be present. The heart is misleading and untrustworthy, so of course it will occasionally lead you astray, and no amount of knowing you’ve been remade can combat that sometimes.

She knows all the answers
And she's rehearsed all the lines
And so she'll try to do better
But then she's too weak to try 

Sometimes, it’s just not enough to know the words and actions. I can speak to that from experience. This idea that salvation comes from effort is not new, but it’s so close to how Christians are supposed to live that it seems like it’s real. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in, “well, if I just knew more of the Bible,” or, “if I just didn’t give into sin that one time, then God would help me more, then God would save me from it.” But you’re too weak, I’m too weak, we’re all too weak to do these things, so we are trapped by our lying heart into thinking we’ll never be okay. 

'Cause this is not about what you've done,
But what's been done for you.
This is not about where you've been,
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved

But here’s the thing: there’s only one thing you need to know, and it’s not the Bible by memory, it’s not the mistakes you’ve made, it’s not how you’re going to do better in the future. The one thing you need to know is what’s been done for you. The one thing you need to understand is that it’s not about feelings or thoughts, it’s about the one action that Jesus Christ made, and that no matter what, once you’ve chosen to believe in Him and what He did, you are claimed by Him and nothing can change that. No mistakes, no thoughts, no feelings. Nothing. Take refuge in that.

In a sense, who you are is not about you at all. Who you are is all about God and how He loves you enough that He would sacrifice His son, over and over and over again if that was what it took, so that He could say, “You are mine.”

Now, here’s a call to action for the Christian community out there. Let’s stop doing the things that cause people to think this way. Let’s stop making our thoughts and actions and gossip about who did what and what happened from that (let’s just stop gossiping anyway). Let’s stop thinking that once someone confesses belief in Jesus that everything’s perfectly fine for them.

Let’s start leading people to grow closer to Christ. Let’s start encouraging those who make mistakes. Let’s lean on the gospel and not on our feelings of Jesus. Let’s aid those who are lost in their thoughts and emotions and don’t know where to go. Let’s tackle the heart and the mind, not the actions. Let’s dive deeper into how we can help others rather than stick to the surface because we feel like it’s not our problem.

When Jesus died, He didn’t just wipe away the actions of sin. He changed who we are and how we thought and felt. He didn’t stick to the surface and do an incomplete job. He fully and thoroughly cleaned us and made us whole. We’re supposed to follow the example of Christ, so let’s follow this example first.

Whose We Are

There are a few giants when it comes to the Contemporary Christian music world. Bands like Elevation Worship, Hillsong and all its variants, and Bethel Music pretty much own the worship music industry in my experience. Folks like Chris Tomlin, TobyMac, Lauren Daigle, and Jeremy Camp run the radio world with their musical brilliance.

But on top of all these groups, there stand a few lyrical giants, including Matthew West, who I have mentioned before as being a master of the rhythmic word. But another very popular group does a fantastic job of making music that can be dissected spectacularly, and that is Casting Crowns.

(What a fancy introduction I’ve written just so I could hype up one of the earliest Casting Crowns songs written all because I love the absolute weight behind the seeming simplicity of some of the lyrics.)

“Who Am I” was, indeed, one of the earliest songs performed by Casting Crowns, written by member Mark Hall. When I talk about lyrical genius, I’m really not stretching the truth. There is so much emotion conveyed by the words in this song, and many of their songs, along with a startling complexity if we really break down what’s going on behind all the words.

While what I really want to talk about is the pre-chorus, we’ll start from the top. Mark Hall stated that the emotion behind this song stemmed partially from this question: “Who am I to think that I can just call up to God whenever I want, from the middle of nowhere, and expect Him to hear me?”

Speaking for myself, I never really had this thought, but I also grew up in church being taught that God loves me and wants to hear from me, but I try to imagine this now: what is it like to not know that God cares for you so much that He wants to hear from you, and indeed, seeks you out when you’re in the middle of nowhere? I think it’s integral to get the background of this song to truly understand where the lyrics come from.

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever-wandering heart?

To one who doesn’t know our God, these questions seem incredibly valid, but even to those who do know our God, doubt sometimes causes us to feel this way. Because, really, who are we to receive such special care from an infinite being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent? How does He even notice us? To Him, we are smaller than ants.

But the great part of these lyrics is that they ask these questions without ever denying the intrinsic truth behind the actions the Lord takes. We know from the Bible that He forms us in our mother’s womb; He knows the number of hairs on our head. We know that He felt our hurt as Jesus who came and felt not only all our hurt, but all the eternal hurt that we should feel from the consequences of sin.

We know that we have a God who chooses to be the lamp to our feet and light for our path not because we follow the path well, but in spite of our inability to walk in a straight line. 

But we know what God has done and continues to do for us. That subject fills a majority of the time spent teaching, preaching, and proselytizing. But what we oh so rarely consider, beyond the surface truth of being sinners who are either relishing sin or saved from it, is who we are in comparison to God. Really: who are we in comparison to omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence? With our lifespans of 85 years and our meager strength and will that isn’t even capable of consistently choosing to do what is right, who are we?  

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind 

Let’s not shy away from this, because it’s incredibly important in helping us realize just how gracious our God is. These are things that, to our perspective, pass by quickly. A flower can be bright and blooming one day and ripped to shreds by a strong wind or swept away by floods the very next day. It is so weak. A wave peeks out from the endless mass of the ocean, looking separated, only to be tossed back down into the frothing waters of the sea. It is important, distinct, for all of a second before it no longer matters. A vapor, a wisp, of material in the wind is tossed about, unable to control itself. It cannot decide where it goes or stays; it just gets whisked by wherever the wind takes it. 

If that’s how we see these things, how much less could our infinite God see us as? We could go to sleep healthy and never wake up. We could seem like we’re important to this world for a moment, but how much do we matter in the grand scheme of things, in even just the timeline of humanity on Earth? 85 years isn’t a lot compared to roughly 6,000. With all the conflicting forces bouncing us around in this world, how much power do we truly have to get where we want to go? 

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me? 

But out of all the dreariness, the tone starts to change. Because if you know our God, you know that even though we should be insignificant, we aren’t. Even though we mess up, sometimes, maybe often, more than we get it right, our God loves us. Our God picks us up from where the winds ripped us apart and pieces us back together. Our God sees every last wave and counts it as important to the ocean. Our God calms the wind and guides us through the breezes to where we belong.

The one with the power to calm raging oceans and stormy gales uses his mighty power to quell the tiny whirlwinds that go off in our hearts as we struggle through this life.

Why? Such a simple question with an incredibly simple answer that is complicated by our human nature. It’s not because of who we are or anything we could do. But because of the one we belong to.

Still you hear me when I'm calling
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling
And you've told me who I am
I am yours

Even though we are tiny and insignificant, our God directs His ears towards us. He’s always listening, always watching, always waiting. To hear and speak when we call out to Him. To hold us by the hand when we stumble. To pick us up when we fall. To carry us when we are too weak. Because we are not left out here on our own. We are His.

But again, why? Why does the Almighty God choose to call us His own? Here’s the lyrics I really wanted to talk about to answer that question:

Not because of who I am
But because of what you've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who you are

Four lines that seem so simple at first glance reveal myriad truths about who we are, why God claims us as His, and why He continues to fight for us. Literally, these four lines are the pinnacle of precision when it comes to explaining the Gospel.

God chose us, but He did not choose us because of who we are or who we could be. None of us are so special as to be chosen over any other. We were saved because of what Jesus did. Because He did what we could not do, and He lived perfectly and died, taking on the wrath of God we could not handle. He provided a way for us to be with God for eternity, but He does not provide us eternity because of anything we did, do, or could do. He provides us salvation because it is who He is. Because His very nature is good. Because His very nature is love. And because we are His, He loves us.

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How He Loves

How do you see people? Do you even notice others when you’re out and about? Or are you so absorbed in yourself and what you’re doing that you’d miss a crime if it happened right in front of you? How do you love?

I’ve been on a kick about how we, as Christians, should love recently. Why? Because it’s the most important thing for us to get right because without us showing love as we are called to, we have no purpose here. Literally our sole purpose is to be an extension, a visual representation, of God’s love on Earth, and I write about it a lot because we fail to be that far more often than we succeed.

“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19. Are we loving like He first loved us?

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men.” Matthew 5:13.

I’ve been thinking about this verse a lot when it comes to determining how nonbelievers see us. Have you ever thought that the world has denied Christianity so hard because we’ve become useless? Because we’ve lost our taste? They’ve thrown out God because the salt he’s using isn’t changing the taste of the world.

That’s because we see too much with our own eyes and hearts. When we look at others through our own eyes, they’re hard to love. All we can see are faults and issues. That’s why we need to look at things through God’s eyes and love people through His heart.

Brandon Heath is one of my favorite artists, and one of his top songs is “Give Me Your Eyes.” And in it, he covers this subject fairly thoroughly.

Breathe in the familiar shock of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere, why have I never cared

This goes back to my opening point: are you really seeing those around you? Do you actually care about them? Is your goal to show as many people as possible to Jesus? Do you care enough about them to reach out and attempt to save them from eternal damnation? Because all the people you come across daily are going somewhere after they die.

Step out on the busy street.
See a girl and our eyes meet.
Does her best to smile at me.
To hide what's underneath.
There's a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie.
Too ashamed to tell his wife he's out of work, he's buyin time.

There are two ways you can take these lyrics. One interpretation is that, if you pay attention, you’ll find that many people wear their hearts on their sleeves, and you can see right into their lives if you actually try to see them and not just glance past while moving about your day.

The other is that you don’t know what people are going through just by passing them by on the street. We are incredibly crafty when it comes to hiding the things that hurt us because we don’t want people to know what it is that hurts us. We don’t like being vulnerable. And here’s the point: it takes time, effort, and love to learn of what troubles people you meet. It’s hard to do, but it’s one of those things that makes us like salt, makes us different enough that the world will recognize it needs us, and more importantly, the God we serve.

It’s difficult, and we can’t do it on our own. Thankfully, He first loved us and gave us the ability to love like He loves.

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see,
Everything that I keep missing,
Give me Your love for humanity.
Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten

Three key things are here: eyes, arms, and heart. We have to see others the way God sees them in order to see what’s troubling them. We can’t see people as a liar or a thief. We have to see them as a person who is broken and lost in sin.

We have to reach out for them with the arms of God to show them the love that only He is capable of showing, to comfort them, and to hold on when our own grip is too weak to drag them out of the hole they’re in.

Finally, we have to love with God’s heart for mankind. We have to love with the kind of heart that had God sacrifice his own son for the sins of all. Sacrifice the humanity in yourself that says, “well they deserve it because they did—insert crime here—”and dedicate yourself to loving to save them from what they deserve because Christ saved you from what you deserve. We cannot afford to forget any. We cannot afford to forsake any. Christ did not; we should not.

Just moving past me by, I swear I never thought that I was wrong
But I wanna second glance so give me a second chance
To see the way you've seen the people all along

I know it feels like it’s not wrong to treat people like the crimes and wrongs they’ve committed. I know that I will never live up to what I’m writing here perfectly, and neither will anyone who reads this. But how much better off do you think the world would be if we stopped viewing people as the sins they’ve committed and started viewing them as God sees them?

What if we saw people as broken rather than horrid? What if we treated people as fixable rather than permanently destroyed? What if we were actually the salt of the Earth, meant to make this place so much better than the sin that permeates it?

What Christian Means

Just this last weekend I was introduced to Christian rapper Nathan Feuerstein, otherwise known as NF, by my little brother. I’ve only heard a few of his songs thus far, but I’ve found quite a lot of valuable information in them to mine, especially in “Therapy Session,” which I want to talk about today.

I want to discuss a few ideas before I get into the lyrics and the themes in this song. The first is the meaning behind music. A lot of times, I think people forget that music is a language—it is meant to convey things: feelings, thoughts, experiences, dreams, life. It’s not just entertainment, and it’s usually not single-minded in purpose. One song can portray a variety of things when you analyze it as you should. My point in this is that you shouldn’t dismiss music just because it’s not something you enjoy listening to.

It’s something we, meaning the Christian community (and others) do far too often. The older generation typically doesn’t like contemporary music during worship because they prefer the style of hymns. The younger generation typically doesn’t like hymns because they’re too slow and boring, or they’re hard to sing during worship, or whatever. And, to be honest, the argument between the two groups has left worship music in kind of a dark place of extremely simplified lyrics sung loudly to appease both.

I say all this because I don’t want anyone dismissing the message from music like this because it’s “not their style” or because NF doesn’t necessarily define himself as a Christian rapper and his music isn’t always the prettiest in terms of sound. Therapy session is actually rather dark at surface level. But when you go deeper, there’s a ton of God-given wisdom behind the words.

So, into the lyrics.

This music is more than you think
Don't book me for just entertainment, it's entertaining
Hearing these parents, they telling their kids
My music is violent, you gotta be kidding me
I guess that your definition of violence and mine
Is something that we look at differently

These verses go back to the topic discussed earlier and breach into the next. A lot of times, we Christians have an incredibly bad habit of railing harshly against things that don’t look, smell, taste, feel, and sound Christian right off the bat. Rap is a prime example in and of itself. Wider sects of the Christian community hate it because sometimes it sounds angry or too loud, and the words aren’t straight from Bible verses. Heavy metal is another genre that tends to get the stink eye from us because of similar reasons.

But this causes a ton of problems when the rest of the world sees it. Trust me when I say that we often have this reputation as practitioners of “cancel culture.” If you don’t know what that is, it’s the name behind the practice of blacklisting something because it doesn’t fit your idea of “good,” or because it made a mistake and said or did something “wrong.” I’m going to avoid getting technically political here, but just go search up some news articles about “Christians boycotting companies,” and just see what’s pulled up.

I won’t deny that there are certainly groups and companies we shouldn’t give our business to, but we exercise the “that’s satanic” thing way too much. We’re talking about those who don’t allow their kids to read Harry Potter because it has witches and magic in it or Percy Jackson because it’s about Greek mythology. In all honesty, Christians are becoming rather like the Pharisees in practice, disallowing things like video games, certain books, movies, songs, bands, etc.

Want me to smile, you want me to laugh
You want me to walk in the stage with a smile on my face
When I'm mad and put on a mask, for real though
I mean, what you expect from me?

Another thing we do far too often as Christians is attempt to come off as perfect. We sugarcoat ideas, we put on masks to hide our true identities and feelings when we go to church on Sundays, we live double lives because we think that’s what it means to be Christians. But I think the rest of the world actually has it right when it comes to talking about how you feel.

It’s okay to be real with your emotions and thoughts. It’s okay to admit that sometimes you doubt God. It’s okay to acknowledge how hard it is to love how Christ loves. It’s okay to admit your struggles. And it’s high past time we started making the body of Christ a safe place to be imperfect humans.

I'm taking pictures with thousands of people
But honestly, I feel like nobody knows me
I'm trying to deal with depression
I'm trying to deal with the pressure

How many people do you actually know? How many actually know you? Who can you genuinely say you are vulnerable with? That’s what’s being expressed here. How many times do you walk out of church on Sunday, talk to some people on the way out to your car, and then not speak to them again until the same time next week? Are you connecting? Are they? It’s so superficial, and most certainly it is not what God wanted for us when he declared that we should meet together and fellowship.

How many Christians deal with depression and anxiety but no one in the church knows? No one is there to help them? It goes back to some of my earlier points—we’re too willing to judge and not willing enough to learn. Personally, I fall victim to not connecting with others well. I have anxiety—talking about myself and being vulnerable is akin to jumping out of an airplane in my head, but these are the things that we must do better, even if it’s difficult, or else we risk failing at the mission God has for us.

I ain't gon' walk on these stages in front of these people
And act like I live my life perfectly
That doesn't work for me
Christian is not the definition of what perfect means

I love that last line more than any other line in this song for a number of reasons. Being Christian does not mean to be perfect. It means to follow the only one who lived a life of perfection. We strive for perfection knowing we will never reach it. The problem is that we pretend to be perfect far too much.

I’ve said this more times than I care to count at this point, but I’ll say it again. I honestly believe that most nonbelievers have no problem with God. If they knew Him, they’d love Him. They all have a problem with us. Because we do an absolutely miserable job of showing them who He is. Nonbelievers don’t hate God; they hate us. We’re judgmental and prudes and snobby and rude. We hate and despise them and then act like we’re better than them because we’re “saved.” They don’t want anything to do with that, and I don’t blame them.

What you probably don’t know, unless you’ve heard this song before, is that pretty much the entire song is NF venting his thoughts and emotions at fellow Christians. Why? Because, not only has he gotten death threats for his music, but someone, and I can almost guarantee it was a “Christian” threatened to slaughter his entire family. Why? Because he didn’t fit their idea of being saved.

That has to stop. NF has likely done more to spread the kingdom of God by the age of 29 than many Christians will manage in an entire lifetime. Now, I’m not trying to be high and mighty about this. This message applies to me, too, as all of my blog posts do. But it needed to be said, and it needs to be said over and over and over again until we get it and start changing how we live.

Listen to Therapy Session on Spotify. NF · Song · 2016.

No Good Alone

In my blog post Bible study on Ecclesiastes, I mentioned the song, “It’s No Good to be Alone” by Brandon Heath along with the theme of the necessity of companionship for us. Today, I’m doubling down on that and bringing in the song, “No Man is an Island” by Tenth Avenue North to talk about some good things that can be done with companions that you can’t find when you’re throwing others to the wayside to chase down a dream.

Biblically, I think it’s pretty clear that we need socialization. We need intimate, vulnerable, human connection to survive and thrive on this Earth. Whether that is through close friendships or a spouse, it is, quite simply, necessary to our existence, our nature.

The songs I’m talking about today I won’t spend too much time going in-depth into the lyrics because they’re pretty straightforward, and I explained a lot of it in Friday’s post. But these songs are more recommendations that you can have on hand to listen to whenever you feel overwhelmed. Hopefully, they’ll remind you that you need people you can count on so you aren’t alone.

One of my favorite verses from “It’s No Good to be Alone” comes after the first chorus.

It's been a little while, you've been outta the scene
Spending all your time chasing down a dream
Takes a lifetime, takes a lifetime
It's a short life, it's a short life

This is, personally, one of the things I struggle with a lot. When I was in middle and high school, I would talk to my friends every day. It wasn’t difficult, but when we all split off to college, I spoke to them maybe once a semester. We were all so busy that we couldn’t even bother with each other for 90 percent of our year. Thankfully, we’ve all been good friends since elementary school and don’t have any problem starting back where we left off, but it’s important to not forget connections like that.

One of the things I think we, as Christians, tend to forget is that life is short, and we don’t have to live it all business-like. The things we will accomplish, either for ourselves or for God, will take our entire lives to achieve. You can’t, and shouldn’t, rush it, and mentally, you can’t handle the strain of dedicating yourself solely to it. Sometimes, we have to let loose and live, experience life with our friends. To me, that’s why part of the opening of this song hits so hard.

We're leaving you a message on your telephone
Everybody's wondering what you're doing home
Yeah, we're starting and you're missing the party
Can you hear it playing your favorite song
Everybody's singing but something's wrong
'Cause you're missing, 'cause you're missing

Just as much as your friends should be a vital part of your life, you are likely a vital part of someone else’s life. Sometimes, you need to give up on the extra hours of work on the weekend and spend some time with people who love you. Otherwise, those connections die, and speaking from experience, it really sucks when you let them go.

Tenth Avenue North’s song, on the other hand, speaks about the things friends can do rather than the necessity of having them. I like “No Man is an Island” because it’s coming from the perspective of a friend reaching out to another rather than the other way around.

I believe the best way to have good friends is to be a good friend, a lot like the adage, “You can’t hate someone who is always nice to you.” You can’t have bad friends if you’re a good friend. Barring an incredible lack of empathy in a person, a bad friend won’t be able to put up with the guilt of being a bad friend to a good friend. They’ll either change to be better or leave the friendship entirely.

But the problem with this is that becoming good friends requires vulnerability. It’s a hard thing to get past.

I see fear in your eyes, there's no safety here
Oh, my friend, let me in, I will share your tears

This is a commonly experienced thought, I believe. Often, we lack the courage to break through the fear of opening up to someone because of potential judgment. But being a good friend is showing empathy and understanding, and then being there for the person who shows that vulnerability, whether that means to be a shoulder to cry on or someone to help them get through the issues.

I wish you never thought you had to go,
Wish you never thought you had to leave!
Together we can lift each other up,
We can build a shelter for the weak!

More biblical truth, which is also why I like Tenth Avenue North so much. A good friend provides a human version of what God provides. It’ll be imperfect, but it’ll help so much for your friends to know that you are a safe place, a shelter, for them to come to and weather the storms of life. But one of the best things about the lyrics above is that you can lift each other up. When one part of a friendship goes down, the other can lift them up in prayer, or lead them to a Biblical answer to the trouble.

I think one of the biggest struggles we feel when attempting to actively find companionship is the belief that no one will ever see us for who we are inside, that no one will find us. And that if they ever do, they won’t understand us or love us in that identity. But here’s the thing, as the song says, we can be found. God is the perfect seeker and He can always find us, but even among other people, there are those who will see you for you and love you.

Even though, as humans, our love is finite because we are not God, we love because He first loved us, and that includes loving in the same ways He loves us.

No man is an island, we can be found
No man is an island, let your guard down!

Listen to No Man Is an Island on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2014.

Listen to It's No Good To Be Alone on Spotify. Brandon Heath · Song · 2011.

Tell the Gospel

You know, there are a lot of lost people out there, wandering around with pain and suffering, but they don’t know where to go to heal. Some don’t even know there’s a chance to heal. I’ve not written about this as much as I probably should have, but now’s the time. Somebody has to tell them about the one who loves them enough to heal their suffering, and to be honest, we don’t do it enough.

One of the most striking lines in the song “Somebody Tell Them” by City Harbor is the fourth. Here it is in context:

There's a child on the subway
His story is written on his face
And the pain he's felt, is enough to fill a lifetime
But he doesn't know any other way

If there is nothing else that could motivate you to share the gospel, this line right here should be plenty. Clearly, something horrible has happened in this child’s life for it to be so visible, but the last line makes this situation even worse.

Most children are happy, joyful—no matter what happens in the world around them, it’s difficult to steal a child’s sense of wonder about the world. The hypothetical child—who is all too real in many situations around the world—has had his joy stolen so thoroughly that all he knows is pain and loss and suffering. He literally does not know anything about the world other than “it hurts.”

I hope you understand how saddening that is. I hope you understand that it shouldn’t be that way. I hope you understand that because you hold the key to the door that can fix it, as the next few lines are about.

Somebody tell him that the lost are saved
Somebody tell him that his debt's been paid
And let him know, love is calling out his name
Somebody tell him, he's a child of the king
And there is an end to this suffering
And hope that never fades, through grace that's made a way
Somebody tell him, somebody tell him now.

It’s your job to step in and comfort those people, especially children. I could make the metaphor about all of us being children who are lost without the Father, but I think it’s fairly clear that such is the case. So, as believers, it’s our job to share the love of Christ.

There’s another point to make in this situation, too. Notice the setting the opening lines take place in: the subway, and the last line: “Somebody tell him now.” There’s a time crunch here. You only have so much time to share the gospel with those you meet. Sometimes, people are in our lives for the entirety of it, and sometimes, they are only there for but a few brief moments, but you impact everyone you ever meet, no matter how long you spend in their presence. It’s your job to make that impact a good one.

I’ve said before that love is sacrifice, but it’s time to reiterate that. Sometimes, love’s sacrifice is death on a cross to save all people who choose to accept the gift. But sometimes, love’s sacrifice isn’t that large. Sometimes, love is just sacrificing your comfort in exchange for a little bit of awkwardness as you speak to a stranger who looks like they’ve been going through a mess. It’s just a little bit of time and a little bit of energy to listen and empathize with someone who’s hurting. It’s just telling the actions of someone who loves them endlessly.

I’m just going to end this with more lyrics from this song, because, truthfully, I don’t think I could write anything better:

Too many times we've all held back
The truth from those put in our path
So let us be the voice of love to them.

What God Wants

If anyone else is like me, you’ll have struggled with God in an attempt to rationalize doing what you want rather than what He wants, or at least trying to figure out every last move He has set up for you. Personally, I hate not knowing what’s going to happen to me on any given day. I prefer a structured environment with no surprises so I can mentally prepare for what’s ahead.

Well, this mindset is what the song “What You Want” by Tenth Avenue North tackles. Let’s just jump into this with the opening lyrics.

Everyday I've been feeling the pressure
I always gotta know the plan
It's been a weight that I've tried to shoulder
I thought I could, but I can’t

Seriously think hard about how annoying and stressful it is to plan even the smallest things. Take a party, for instance. You have to find a place, get the food, arrange for drinks, invite all the people, make sure everyone knows where it’s at, arrange entertainment, arrange a cleanup, and deal with what’s leftover. There are hundreds of contingencies you have to be ready for, and that’s a lot of pressure for a party.

How much more do you have to think of when you try to plan out your life? There are things you’re going to have to react to that you would never even be able to consider at the start. Where there are hundreds of contingencies you might need to plan for something small, there are hundreds of thousands, or even millions, you have to look out for when you’re planning something big. And before you even start thinking you can, let me tell you that you aren’t capable of thinking of everything. None of us are.

When you think about it, and the next set of lyrics convey this, we’re wired for someone else to take control of all that, someone with an infinitely powerful mind who can see everything we’ll ever have to face.

And I'm so tired
Of chasing dreams
When I am wired to let you lead

About those first two lines, I want to say that there’s nothing wrong with chasing your dreams. Many desires are placed on our hearts by God to be fulfilled, but I qualify it with this: don’t let your dreams be set completely in stone. Be ready, if God wants you to do something different, to follow after His plan instead.

You're changing my heart
To want what you want
To love how you love
And that is enough
There's no greater plan that I need to know
You only ask me to follow

When we choose to follow God, there is a renewal by the Holy Spirit, and it should change our hearts to want what God wants and to love like God loves so that we become more like Him. And really, is there anything we need to do that is more than to love how He loves? I don’t think so. I say if you truly exemplify God’s love, you’ll never go wrong. Other people might do wrong to you, but you can never do any wrong by just loving people the way God loves us.

I’ve seen so many examples of those last two lines in the Bible, wherein people called by God didn’t know the outcome of their actions but did as God asked anyway, and they were rewarded greatly because of it. One of the best examples I know of is with Abraham and Isaac. Abraham had no idea what would happen when he went up to sacrifice his son, but because he did what the Lord asked him to, not only did he strengthen his faith in God, but he also was blessed beyond measure and from him came millions of descendants. What was a heavy burden in sacrificing his son became a very light one by the end of it.

Oh, there's freedom in this surrender
I feel myself come alive
And the burden feels like a feather
When I let my agenda die

it’s incredibly freeing when you just listen to God. It takes all of your energy to try and fight against him, as Jonah found out, and it inevitably fails. But when you just follow God’s will, as Abraham did, the burden you’re granted is like a feather. At the end of the day, Abraham’s burden was to, basically, do nothing. His only job was having descendants, and he’d already started that.

Basically, what this all boils down to is that it’s so much easier to just let go and follow the plan God has already written than it is to try to throw away his plan and make your own. When you want what God wants, everything becomes so much easier.

Listen to What You Want on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2016.

Where Healing Begins

The song “Healing Begins” by Tenth Avenue North has one of my favorite lyrics in all of Contemporary Christian music because it holds so much wisdom within it, and I need to share it.

In fact, this whole song is full of amazing wisdom, and I’m going to use it to lend a helping hand to an argument I’ve wanted to make for a couple of days now, which regards how to speak to those who are not saved and living in sin.

We often say, “Love the sinner. Hate the sin.” And I think we’re all on board with that. But I want to take that a step farther: you don’t express your hate of the sin to people who don’t care about your opinions on what is sin and what isn’t.

Why? Because as far as they’re concerned, their beliefs say they’re doing nothing wrong. At that point, your job is only to love them, not point out how much you hate what they do. You have to love them to the gospel so they can see Jesus’s love from the cross, and from there, they can work on changing themselves if they choose to accept Jesus’s sacrifice and worship Him as Lord.

This is a big topic, and I’m not going to do the whole thing justice, but this is a short example of what I mean and how it works. Foul language is wrong. The Bible says, “No foul language is to come from your mouth,” in Ephesians 4:29. But that’s a belief that Christians hold, not a belief that the rest of the world holds. Therefore, it’s not something that can or should be fixed until after someone becomes a believer.

See, our job is to get nonbelievers to the cross so they can accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Then the Lord works on their hearts to change their behavior. It’s something that must happen within them first before you or anyone else can help them.

But back to my favorite lyrics ever, which are these:

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside

These six lines can encompass so many different things. Whether you’re talking about faith through works or working and living like a super Christian on the outside when you know your heart isn’t in it, these lyrics are so broad, yet so specific, they can be applied to any situation. But the key point is the separation between you and others.

The last two lines of the first stanza are flawless, in my opinion, and this comes from someone who used to put up his own walls like these. See, while we think the walls we’re building up keep people from getting too close and seeing the darkness in our hearts, it actually just keeps us locked in. Others can see right through the glass separating us to see us suffering in our own hurt.

The walls don’t keep others or God out. They just keep you in; they keep you from experiencing the freedom that comes with letting go of yourself. They keep you from receiving help from others because though people can see through the glass to your suffering, they can’t get through it to help ease your pain and share your burdens, as Christians are called to do.

But, as the next stanza describes, when you let your walls fall down, people will be there to help you, and you’ll experience freedom.

The chorus is pretty great, too.

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Healing begins when you let your walls fall down so the light can come to the dark and clear it out. This is quite literally one of the best metaphors for salvation I have ever seen. Sin is darkness and in us. Jesus is light and outside of us. We block him out by thinking we’re good enough on our own and building up walls with our own works. But when we break those walls down, the light is able to reach us and begin clearing out the sin, the darkness, within us. The only thing stopping Jesus from reaching us is us letting Him in.

And all that happens inside of you. It’s a change of heart and mind, not just actions. Because when you just try to change your actions instead of your heart and mind, you get the next few lines.

Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide but you find
That the shame won't disappear

We’re often afraid to confront that which we know is wrong. We want to keep it a secret from God, so we hide it, but that leads to shame, which further leads us to separation from God. And, this leads you right back to building up walls to keeping God out. You have to literally come to where you’re broken with God and let Him cover the sin.

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

His blood is capable of covering the wrongs inside of you. His light is capable of rooting out the darkness. His grace easily defeats your sins and mistakes. So let your walls down, reach inside yourself, and let God confront your problems with you so healing can begin.

Listen to Healing Begins on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2010.

Each Day Anew

Insofar as sin, nobody’s keeping score of your wrongdoing. God doesn’t hold a record of your wrongs over your head when it comes to your salvation. In fact, the Bible says that once you repent of your sins and ask Him for forgiveness, He removes your sin as far as the east is from the west. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” That’s Psalm 103:12.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I’m going to reiterate it because I hadn’t thought of it this way before someone else said it. That Psalm is really cool because east and west are the only directions that never touch, by definition. If you travel north, you can, and will, at some point reach a place where you will no longer be going north, but south. If you travel south, you will end up going north once you reach a certain spot in Antarctica. But east and west don’t work that way. If you flew across the Atlantic Ocean from the east coast of the U.S. all the way across Europe, Asia, and back to North America, you would always be traveling east. Even once you passed the spot you started, you’d still be going east.

The metaphysical points labeled “east” and “west” never touch. They actually become increasingly distant as time goes on. It’s kind of like the expansion of the universe. One edge of the universe continues expanding while the opposite does the same. Those two “edges” of the universe are constantly growing farther apart.

Mathematically, it’s like infinity and negative infinity. The points of these numbers aren’t fixed. They’re ever-increasing and constantly creating a wider gap between the two of them. It’s kind of abstract, but incredibly cool when you really think about it.

Last Monday, I wrote about shame along with Dan Bremmes’s “Get up Again.” Today, I’m talking about moving past the sin involved in shame with Matthew West’s “Day One.”

These two songs have similar themes, though I particularly love the idea behind the phrase “day one.” Day one is a moniker for a new beginning. A fresh start. A first step. It’s acting as if the things that came before no longer exist, and your journey of life only begins on that day.

So, let’s talk about it. The song opens with the sentiment of stepping out of the past:

Well, I wish I had a short term memory
Wish the only thing my eyes could see
Was the future burning bright right in front of me
But I can't stop looking back

Sometimes, it’s easier to remember particularly bad memories because of the emotions attached to them. Personally, I can remember almost every single time I embarrassed myself throughout my life because the memories are burning with the shame and embarrassment I felt at the time. Our brains store and recall information far more easily when that information is supercharged with emotion. That’s what the opening lines of the song mean. It’s hard to forget those things, even when there is so much good to look forward to.

Things would be far easier if we were perfect and never messed up, but we can’t hold on to that image, and we end up wishing and praying for God to just remove our imperfections, as the next stanza of the song says. But I’m here to tell you, in case you didn’t know, that such a thing will not happen in this life. God will not remove your imperfections while you’re still on Earth. And that’s where the lead into the chorus comes in:

I wish I wasn't wishing anymore
Wish I could remember that nobody's keeping score
I'm tired of throwing pennies in a well
I gotta do something
Here goes nothin’

It’s time to stop wishing and praying for things to change when you aren’t doing anything about it yourself. Like I said last week, we wallow in shame and avoid coming to God a lot out of that shame, and it stops us from doing what we need to do for the kingdom. You have to do something. You have to get up and change yourself.

See my hourglass is upside down
My someday soon is here and now
The clock is tickin'
And I'm so sick and tired of missing out

I love the imagery of these lines. There’s so much in these four lines that I won’t be able to talk deeply about all of it without making this about 4,000 words longer than it should be. This is a call to action. It’s saying not to let your sand sit at the bottom of the hourglass as if time isn’t ticking by. Turn the thing up and get your own timer going. See, you’ve only got so much time on Earth, whether you’re measuring it or not (as in the third line) so you’d better start measuring it.

The second line expresses the same sentiment as Matthew West’s “Do Something.” You keep saying you’re going to do it tomorrow? Soon? It won’t happen. Make your tomorrow a today. Make your soon a right now. Otherwise, it’ll never come. Don’t miss out on the things God has for you because you won’t make today Day One.

Every morning, mercy’s new, so start over and march on to the beat of a new drum. Today could be day one of the rest and best of your life if you’re willing to step out on the grace of the amazingly forgiving God we have who is so merciful He is willing to let you start each day anew. He is willing to essentially forget every wrong you have ever done so that, to Him, you committed no wrongs at all.

Don’t sit there wishing that you didn’t do those things you did. Get up and live like those things didn’t happen.

Get up Again

I’m choosing to talk about the themes in this song, “Up Again” by Dan Bremmes, now because of the subject covered in my Ecclesiastes study on Friday. Part of the song talks about living your life on this Earth well, but what’s more important is the acknowledgement that you are going to fail. You just need to get back up afterward and continue to chase Christ.

One of the things I haven’t really talked about in Ecclesiastes is that Solomon sinned, a lot, in his attempts to find joy in the things of Earth. His having 700 wives and 300 concubines was not a cool thing by God. His massive collection of gold and silver that he idolized at one point was not a cool thing. He even had too many horses according to one of the laws in Deuteronomy 17:16.

The point is, there was a lot that Solomon did wrong. He has a lot of people beat purely on the wives and concubines portion, if we were to compare sins—not that we should. But even though he sinned often, he was, and is, considered the wisest man to ever walk the Earth. 1 Kings 3:12 says, “I will therefore do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before and never will be again.”

So, how much more allowable, then, is it for us to fail if Solomon could fail? And look at David, too. He was called a man after God’s own heart, and even he sinned many times. That’s why the following is one of my favorite lines:

And I guess not every little thing

Works out just the way you dreamed

You can take a couple wrong turns

Still end up where you’re supposed to be.

Sometimes, I catch myself looking at my past for too long—all the horrible decisions I’ve made, friends lost and found, opportunities missed—and I worry and fear for my future. Did I mess it up? Have I lost my chance at God’s promises for my life? If you think about that, too, know that the answer to your questions is: no. You absolutely have not messed up God’s plan for your life. You’re not strong enough to do that.

You can mess up. You can step off the straight and narrow. You can turn around and walk away for a time and still go where God will have you go. Especially if you didn’t just look God in the face and say, “I’m not doing that, God.” Jonah basically told God no and still ended up doing exactly what God had planned for him to do. So will you. A few steps in the wrong direction because you couldn’t resist temptation briefly in your human imperfection cannot stop God from doing what He plans to do through you and for you.

But it’s hard for us to think about that because we have trouble stepping outside of our past. We remember our mistakes for so much longer than we remember the good we’ve done. That’s another reason I like this song. It confronts our shame and tells us to leave it behind, which is exactly how God would have us do it:

The other day, I was thinking to myself

Made a list of all my mitakes

Oh, I wish I could’ve run to you

And tell you all about my heartbreak

And I wondered to myself ‘wait a minute

Am I even on the right path now?’

Had a couple wins, but I got knocked down

But I know that if you were here right now, and you’d say

Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win

You gotta get up, up again

Keep holding on, it’s not the end.

Hear it from me: God doesn’t want you living in shame. He’s forgiven you of your sin. It’s time that you forgive yourself and let your heart move on to serving God fully. Trust me. Living in your own shame will only hold you back from doing what God asks you to do. You don’t want that, and God doesn’t want that.

Feel guilt, because you are guilty of sinning. But let that guilt drive you to Christ. Then give it all to Him and move on. Get back up from your fall and keep on fighting. As the song says, you’ve only got one life, so don’t let it get away by staying down when you’re knocked on your butt. Hike yourself up and get after it again.

Listen to Up Again on Spotify. Dan Bremnes · Song · 2019.

Burn the Ships

I don’t know about anyone else, but I grew up with music as an integral part of my life. My mom is a music teacher and was the choir director at my first church, so I was surrounded by, and practically bathed in, music for most of my life, and so I have a connection with it. There are some things that I just get better from music than anywhere else, but sometimes, lyrics don’t quite make sense the first couple times through, which is why I decided to start this section of my blog: lyric breakdowns.

See, for me, I sometimes hear God speak better when I’m listening to music. There’s something about worship that gets me focused on listening a little better than reading sometimes. So, without further ado, For King and Country’s “Burn the Ships.”

How did we get here?
All castaway on a lonely shore
I can see in your eyes, dear
It's hard to take for a moment more

This song starts with what I would deem the most ambiguous part of it, which makes sense, because it’s a query. That query is a question that I’m sure a lot of us ask when we struggle with sin. You get in so deep, and before you know it, you’re a castaway, abandoned on an island by yourself with no clue of how you arrived or where to go afterward.

If you check out the background of this song, you’ll find that Luke Smallbone, one of the writers, was driven to writing this partially by his wife’s battle with a prescription medication addiction. That’s where the last two lines of the first stanza come from.

Another part of the driving force behind the lyrics of this song has to do with historical figure Hernán Cortés, who, to ensure his men would follow through on their conquest of Mexico, ordered them to burn their ships, eliminating any chance of backing out.

We've got to

Burn the ships, cut the ties
Send a flare into the night
Say a prayer, turn the tide
Dry your tears and wave goodbye

While mostly self-explanatory, “Burn the ships, cut the ties,” is doubling down on eliminating escape routes. Basically, this is setting the boats on fire and then casting them off to sea, as well. So, not only are you destroying the integrity of the ship, you’re also sinking it so there’s no chance of salvaging any part of it.

“Send a flare into the night.” Flares are for emergency rescue situations. It’s a call for help because it’s so much harder to fight sin alone.

To turn the tide is to reverse the situation, as a tide turns from high to low. In the times of sailboats, the turning of the tide was extremely important to casting off to sea. If you were trying to set sail as the tide was coming in, it was far more difficult than if you cast out as the tide was going out. You had to put yourself in a favorable situation to more easily escape the harbor, and it’s the same with sin.

Step into a new day
We can rise up from the dust and walk away
We can dance upon our heartache, yeah
So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships
And don't you look back

I really love the first line of the chorus because it implies so many things. Not only is it mentioning a new beginning (“a new day”) but it also mentions that changing your life isn’t a passive thing. You can’t just let the new day come upon you, you must “step into” it. It’s an action of moving forward.

The second line re-enforces the first. Rising up from being knocked down isn’t something that just happens. You have to force your muscles into action, even against their aching protest (because you’d definitely be aching if you were knocked into the ground hard enough to kick up dust). And, you also have to “walk away” from the fight. A deeper implication here is that you have to pick yourself up and let someone take over the battle you were fighting, i.e., God.

And then, “dance upon our heartache” is significant in that it implies the necessity of joy, of finding the energy, the grace of God, to find joy even when you’re aching, in pain. I believe that’s important because we are called to have joy even when we are suffering.

Finally, “don’t you look back.” One of the most dangerous things about turning away from sin is the temptation to look back at what you’re running from. It’s dangerous because you see what you had, and you know it, and it attempts to draw you back in. Not looking at sin is the easiest way to avoid the temptation, I believe.

Don't let it arrest you
This fear is fear of fallin' again
And if you need a refuge
I will be right here until the end

For King and Country would agree with me, I think, based on the next stanza. We often consider the fear of the unknown as being literally that, fear of what you don’t know, but I’d argue that it’s more of a fear that we can’t handle what’s ahead. The first two lines are stating as such: don’t let the fear of failing stop you from moving forward. The next two lines serve as encouragement to go forward: even if you fall, there is a safe place where you can heal and rest to go forward again.

So long to shame, walk through the sorrow
Out of the fire into tomorrow
So flush the pills, face the fear
Feel the wave disappear
We're comin' clear, we're born again
Our hopeful lungs can breathe again

The last stanza to talk about is absolutely filled with metaphors that I could go on and on about, but I’ll keep it as short as possible.

One of the things that keeps us back from God is shame, feeling like we’re not enough and we won’t be accepted. Say bye to shame and go through the necessary feelings to shed that. If you have to be sad, hurt, in pain, walk through it. It’s something that’s here now, but there is another side to it where you’ll be free. You’ll eventually escape the “fire” and get to a new chance.

“Flush the pills” is another reference to Luke’s wife’s addiction, but it also serves as a symbol of any sin. Flush that down the toilet. Get rid of it in a way that you can’t go back for it. “Face the fear” of the unknown, of the uncomfortable and feel the unbearable weight that was prepared to come crashing down vanish.

Resurface from the water and breathe in the air, breathe in the hope of starting again, of being free from that pain and suffering of drowning.

I absolutely love this song, and I hope I’ve done a decent job of explaining it in a somewhat short manner. It’s filled with so much advice on how to combat sin in this life and really gets deep into the feelings that people who are suffering with these incredibly addictive sins such as drugs, porn, etc. feel as they’re trying to turn to God.

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