But I feel compelled to write today. I was driving home from church today and was listening to one of my favorite new worship songs: "O The Blood". I have been wanting Matt to do this song on a Sunday for a couple months now, and last week he finally obliged :). There is just something about this song, an anointing, that makes me cry almost every time that I hear it. So today, as I am shamelessly driving and sickly singing and ugly crying to this song, I began to wonder about how the lyrics might sound to someone who did not grow up in church.
After all, to those who aren't familiar with "church lingo" or know nothing of Christ's sacrifice, singing about blood(?) might seem a little.............strange.
O the blood, crimson love
Price of life's demand
Shameful sin, placed on Him
The hope of every man
O the blood of Jesus washes me
O the blood of Jesus shed for me
What a sacrifice, that saved my life
Yes the blood, it is my victory
Savior Son, Holy One
Slain so I can live
See the Lamb, the Great I Am
Who takes away my sin
O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
The precious blood of the Lamb
What a sacrifice, that saved my life
Yes the blood, it is my victory
O what love, no greater love
Grace, how can it be
That in my sin, yes even then
He shed His blood for me
I talk a lot about God on this blog, because this blog represents my life and God is the center of my life. The characteristic I am most attracted to writing about God is His incredible love. To me, it is His most defining characteristic, the driving force behind everything else.
When I think about explaining the lyrics of this song to someone who did not grow up in church, I hope that what they would most sense would be God's abiding and infinite love. However, to be brutally honest, I don't have a lot of experience talking through my faith with those who aren't Christians. Since I rededicated my life to God when I was 14, I have dwelled in a large, comfy bubble of Christian family and friends. In high school, my best friends were my youth group and the Christian group at school. In college, a Christian university, the vast majority of my friends - except for a few, special friends I met while serving at Old Spag - were Christians. Arkansas? All friends I met while working with Chi Alpha, a Christian ministry. Alaska? All friends I met at church.
For that reason, I have never really had to share my faith. It was already shared. A couple of meager attempts that I made as a self-righteous teenager resulted in a wounded relationship with my brother and feeling pretty puffed up about the whole situation. I wish I could take that back.
All of that to say, looking through those lyrics and singing them whole-heartedly, I know what they mean to me. I feel the aching love course through my bones with each word.
But how do I explain the blood? How do I share the meaning of the cross and sacrifice that Jesus made for us? How do I express the pull of my heart, the peace, the power, the love?
I don't know.
Maybe it will come in time. When it does, I pray that the self-righteousness of my high school years has been completely stripped away so that all that meets the person I am speaking with is the pure, unbridled love of God.
Until I can explain myself better, I guess this blog is the best source I have for expressing my faith.
More than anything, I just want people to know that God loves them. God loves them enough to send His Son to die in their place so that they could live with Him in heaven forever. Even in the utter depths of our human uglies, God loves us all enough to do whatever needed to bring us to Himself.
Maybe its best to keep it simple.
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