I’ve caught myself every now and then repeatedly listening to Addison Road’s song “What Do I Know of Holy”. It never fails to bring tears to my eyes and I can’t ever listen to it just once. The song touches my heart so deeply because it expresses the greatness of God in terms of what we do not know of Him. For almost the past year any time Christian songs come on the radio or are sung in church and I find myself unable to sing. I listen to the words and I almost cringe wondering if I could be so bold as to sing such strong words claiming to know God, claiming to lay down my life for Him, claiming that He is my all. Do the words and songs just make me feel good? Because their statements are outlandish – they’re hard core – and that’s not what I would say about my life. Really, I’m selfish. I live how I want – spend money on my home while people in Japan parish. I throw out food because I think it may be bad and children all around the world are starving. I drive by homeless people all the time without stopping to help….and the list goes on………
And in all seriousness and reality, I’m not pitying myself or being dramatic. But I think it’s a mere fact that the words that are in Christian songs don’t even come close to being lived out in real life. They make us feel good and they make us feel passionate. And while my heart fully wants and desires to follow God, I can’t help but know that I am so far from His Holiness. I’m so far from even understanding what a Great and Might God I truly do serve.
I know, I’m cynical and a skeptic. I fully realize that and often consider where it leads me, but I also deep down feel like there is so much more. There’s so much more to God, so much more to His kingdom that He wishes we realized, so much more to His Holy Spirit in us, so much more than this life we’re living. And I long for it. I long to understand it, and I’m tired of pretending that it already exists in our or my Christian life.
I’ve been reading through the gospels these last couple of weeks and almost at every story I find myself longing to be one of those standing by Jesus, hearing His words, and seeing what God on earth really looked like. I soak up how He lived His life honoring God and my mind races with a million questions. There’s so much I don’t understand – so much I just don’t get. And yet, I love reading the stories of Jesus. He knew the ways of God; He knew God’s heart for this world. He offered and promised so much for this life, and yet it doesn’t ever seem to show up anymore. And not for a second do I think He has failed to fulfill His promises, instead I think we fail to understand and we fail to “grasp hold of that which Christ has laid hold of (us)”.
And that is why I listen to Addison Road’s song over and over. It’s my confession to God. My confession of being so finitely minded that I cannot and have not comprehended His infinite Being. I just want to know more. I want my hear to understand more. I want my life to reflect more….
