One of my all-time favorite songs is "Times" by Tenth Avenue North. It's a beautiful dialogue between a sinner and the God of the universe. The lyrics speak to my very heart and soul.
The sinner (me) knows they need God but feels so far from Him, confessing unbelief in a real and vulnerable way. It's beautiful. Most of us doubt, but how many of us go to the Lord in our broken humility asking, "Are you done forgiving? Can you look past my pretending?"
I'm fairly certain most of us think so highly of ourselves that we don't even think to ask this second question. We truly believe we can pull a fast one on God, that we've got Him fooled.
But what I love even more than the sinner's cries in this song is God's response. He doesn't yell, he doesn't rebuke, he simply reminds his beloved son of the truth. He calls him out on the lies he's believed, and says, "No, that's not me. This is."
"I hear you say my love is over,
its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
Well my love is over, its underneath
its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I'm there through your heartache
I'm there in the storm
my love I will keep you by my power alone
I don't care where you've fallen, where you have been
I'll never forsake you
my love never ends, it never ends."
But perhaps my very favorite part of the whole song is one simple line, "The times you go hungry and are tempted to steal."
This line always brings me back to the ten commandments and gets my brain going. Some of the commandments seem like common sense to me. Stealing and murder aren't even on my radar of sins I need to worry about. I'm not going to knock over Best Buy anytime soon, and I feel guilt when I kill a spider... so I'm fairly certain I'll never kill my fellow man.
But this one line changed my thinking about God's commands, because it goes beyond the physical act itself and points to the sin of our hearts. God could care less about the material things in this world and who thinks they own them. He reminds us in Luke 6:30, "...from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back." It's a hard truth most of us don't like to think about. Our possessions were never really ours.
That's the problem with stealing. We're all thieves. Everything in this world is God's! And when we steal it doesn't matter that we're taking it out of the hands of a brother or sister, the problem is that we're taking it out of the hands of God.
And this goes so far beyond material things.
The line says, "the times that you're hungry and are tempted to steal." The heart issue is the motive behind stealing. We steal because we're hungry. For something... or someone.
Maybe you've never walked into a store and taken something, and maybe you've never borrowed something from a friend, and conveniently "forgot" to give it back, but have you ever been hungry for God's love and stolen a brother or sister's affection to satisfy that need?
We do this all the time. So many Christians (myself included) think that because we're not fooling around with people and stealing their purity, that we're on the right track. We take flirting way too lightly. When I flirt and seek to gain a guy's attention, I'm stealing! I am not satisfied by God alone. I want validation and love and affirmation from the greatest man in all the world, but rather than getting in the Word or falling on my knees in prayer to be reminded of God's love for me... I run to the nearest guy and accept his attention as a substitution.
And when I do that I am stealing his attention. I'm stealing his eyes from his future wife, I'm stealing his words of affirmation. I'm stealing all this goodness God put in my brother for my own temporary pleasure.
It's okay to be encouraged by a member of the opposite sex, it's okay to be complimented by them. In fact, I'd argue we don't do those two things enough. At least not with pure hearts. Are you loving on a brother or sister to point them towards Christ, or are you loving on them in a way that points solely to you? Are you stealing their gaze from God?
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It's Little 5 weekend at IU, and for those of you who don't know what that means... it's said to be the greatest college party weekend in the nation. And by weekend, I mean week. And by greatest, I mean darkest.
We sleep when it's dark. And when we're deep in sleep and someone turns on a bright light we groan and seek to shield our eyes. It's almost painful, and we usually yell at whoever turned on the light to make it dark again so we can fall back into our unconscious, carefree state.
The same can be said of sin. When we're deep in sin and someone wakes us up and exposes what we're doing, it's painful, and we want to shield our eyes and go back to our satisfying, yet ephemeral, dreamworld. But God is already winning, and as much as we plead to go back to our sin, guilt and conviction make it so even if we fall back to sleep, but it's not the same carefree, catatonic state we were in.
This morning was a rough one for me. The darkness of this party week lulled me into a deep sleep and God painfully turned the lights on me this morning. Seeing my sin in the light evoked in me such powerful sadness I literally began to shake.
So I turned on some peaceful music in an attempt to calm myself down, when this song came on. "Times." I wanted to crumple under the weight of my sin, and I still do... but I have to hold fast to God's words. I am not past his forgiveness, and he does see past my pretending. He will never forsake me, and his love never ends.
Maybe you're like me, you're still sleeping and you think stealing and murder don't apply to you. But if you've ever stolen someone's affection or killed someone's spirit with bitter words, I pray God will turn the lights on and wake you, too.
"And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, 'So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:40-41
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