I feel like the Devil could really care less if I believed in God.
I know one guy in particular that believes in God very strongly and yet is a complete jackass most of the time. (His name is Joel…)
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure making us lose our faith is always the primary goal of the Devil. But, I don’t think he goes about it the ways we all think he does. I wonder if we miss the point a lot more often than is healthy.
The insidiousness of evil is that we as modern Christians cling to our sacred cow hot button issues of things that we must advocate and fight against-abortion, moral decay, the decline of the American family, the protection of marriage, keeping a set of the 10 commandments in public places (not that the people advocating the ever present commandments actually obey them or anything). The list is really long and if we can make progress against it, we feel good. They are good things, but to engage them on a daily basis, at least for me, seems to give me just enough of a sense of purpose that I miss the silent evil all around me. I miss the trees next to me because I am too busy looking at the forest.
I wonder a lot if the real danger of evil is that I don’t realize it’s near me and then call it out. What I mean is this- I hardly ever step back and think about the fact that maybe the most dangerous thing that the Devil has convinced me of is not about whether God is not real, it is that I am alone.
That it is just me. I am the only one who struggles the way I do. No other real Christian would sin like you do…
No one could ever understand you. So you had better keep it all to yourself…
And yet, there is so much poetry and music in this world that screams to me otherwise.
They say the best songs are written from a heartache. If you have ever listened to a song by a musician who has written a moving lyric to haunting timing and it moves something deep in our souls, we naturally want more. Why is that?
When a song connects, when it awakens a long dormant part of our heart, maybe what we essentially hear is: “Me too.” We hear in that rhythm our hearts song. As we listen, the spell we all live under begins to crack. We may never meet the songwriter, but we share the same heartache.
I wonder if that is why the Bible always proclaims to “Sing to the Lord” so much? We come together and sing songs, we pass the same words over our collective lips, and it bonds us together. That when we see others raise their hands high, we know that they feel like we do.
Give me 5 more minutes and you will see what God is getting at. That the beauty of following God is that He wants us to know that we are not alone. We all feel and in that feeling, He moves.
There has been a song buzzing in my heart the last week, not just because it is beautiful, but because it is real. It really happens.
Come see what I mean. The lyrics are below the video. Join us…
Will your grace run out
If I let you down
‘Cause all I know
Is how to run
‘Cause I am a sinner
If its not one thing its another
Caught up in words
Tangled in lies
You are the Savior
And you take brokenness aside
And make it beautiful
Beautiful
Will you call me child
When I tell you lies
Cause all I know
Is how to cry
I am a sinner
If its not one thing its another
Caught up in words
Tangled in lies
You are the Savior
And you take brokenness aside
And make it beautiful
Beautiful
You make it beautiful
You make it beautiful
Chasing The Wild Beast 