07.14.10
this is where the healing begins – 14
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 build up are just glass on the outside
So let them fall down
There’s freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We’re here nowThis is where the healing begins
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the darkSparks will fly as grace collides
With the darkest side of us
So please don’t fight this coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us
This is a song off the new Tenth Avenue North CD called Healing Begins. A friend of mine and some of her friends who are students at Regent University made a music video for the song that you can watch here. They did an incredible job and I highly recommend watching it. :) Anyway, this song reminded me of a post I had started a long time ago so I thought I’d pull it back out and finish writing it. I kinda wrote it in mostly questions, partly because I don’t have the answers, and partly to make you think. :)
One of the LU podcasts I recently listened to was by Ergun Caner who was talking about hypocrisy within the church and how the #1 problem that those who are non-believers have with the church is that those who claim to be Christians don’t act like it at all. When I was thinking about this message I was realizing that everyone deals with hypocrisy on some level. Even if it’s not intentional. How many times has someone asked you “How are you?” and you’ve answered “Fine” when really everything was horrible? I know I have. Sometimes it’s just a matter of trust, and how much you think the other person cared. And other times it may be that you were in a hurry and didn’t want to take the time to explain.
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
But other times, many times, hypocrisy can become a mask we put on. We want people to see that we have everything together so we pretend we do. I think sometimes that especially Christians do this, maybe because we think that if we don’t have everything together then we’re doing something wrong. We’re not praying hard enough, we’re not pleasing God, we did something wrong. So we pretend everything is alright. But something I’ve learned is that the Church (as the Body of Christ) should be the one place we should feel comfortable enough to open up about things that we are struggling with, the problems that we are going through, and the things that are happening in our lives.
So why isn’t it? Why do we not feel comfortable admitting we don’t have it all together? If we as Christians can’t even be real about our lives, why should we expect others outside the church to open up to us about their lives? If those outside the church think that we are going to judge them because of the things they’ve done and that they’re not good enough to even come to church, how is that being Jesus to them?
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
I think that no one wants to say that they don’t have everything together because that involves being vulnerable. And what if people don’t care, or blow you off, or tell someone else, or condemn you? But the thing is, no one is perfect, so why do we expect people to be? It’s like we think that once you become a Christian your life is going to be automatically perfect and nothing bad will happen. How would things change if we felt safe enough to be open about everything?
Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the darkest side of us
So please don’t fight this coming light
Let this blood come cover us
Like the main idea of Christianity, is that we CANNOT do it by ourselves. We realize that there is no way we could do it ourselves and that only through God’s grace can we be saved and changed. If we really grasped that than why is it that we think we can live the rest of our lives on our own?
(about their CD “Light Meets the Dark”)
It’s a cry for confession, exposure, and the laying down of our pride. It’s a cry for honesty, for truth, and for an encounter with the One who is truth, and having that encounter change the way we see the world. You see, when we believe this thing we call the gospel, it allows us to be honest about who we really are. Or should I say, it forces us to come to terms with who we are. It frees us to not only be exposed but to be ok about being exposed; to speak our pain and fears out into the open. It frees us to be poor in spirit. Which, isn’t that the goal after all?
