Music Tuesday #2

Song of the Week: Common Code by Staggerford.
You can listen to it on myspace. (Everywhere else=only song clip!)
Lyrics not on the interwebs so I did my best to listen. First verse + chorus:

"Love Love Love is all we ever talk of.
Talk and talk is all we ever get done.
The more I tried to feel the more I felt pain.
I'm wondering if it's a worthy exchange.
Who knew that there is never anything to gain,
Lest you might end up feeling it might not have been a fair trade.

Common Code says 'Love will never let you down'..."

At first I just wanted to touch on the first 2 lines of this song because that's what got me when I first heard it. It reminded me of how a lot of people "do" church. You go there on Sunday and talk about loving people. OK. And we talk about God and we talk about meeting people's needs and we talk about having vision....which is great, but putting all of that into action is even greater. But half the time it's really just left as a nice idea and the talking is all that is ever accomplished. Sad story, right? I was just going to exhort you/myself with 1 John 3:18 "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with deeds and in truth." because an outpouring of our love for Him = an outpouring of our love to others...and there you have it! BUT I think God just called me out to stretch my thinking cuz this song was playing in my head ALL DAY and it was just the first 2 lines. And now, when I listened through the song in it's entirety, in order to write about it, I felt I also must explore the next part which is probably why we talk about love but don't really do it as often or as well as we'd like.

We know it'll hurt when we really see the needs of others and let it burden our hearts. We realize it'll require the pain of personal sacrifice to try and meet the needs to others. We start to wonder if it will be worth it to carry out the things we talk of because, really, we'd rather just be in ignorant bliss... (lines 3&4) And then, you may decide that you're willing to do love and not just talk love and maybe you don't see any good come of it. You give and give and give and don't see a result. What if God's purpose is just that? To love and not get anything in return. He never promised we'd have riches and treasures on Earth from being obedient to Him, we may really just be gaining Christ's future glory, y'know, eternal treasure that you only get when you're dead. We just need to understand that that should be all the glory we need. (lines 4&5) But we tend to get selfish and want something in return for our efforts. Even if it's just our friend telling us we're awesome. We kinda feel gypped when we get nothing...get used to it.

Common code, like common thinking...everyone thinks love is constant, good and neverending... The Common Code I think of is the Bible and 1 Corinthians says, "Love never fails." And God is Love. God never fails. God's purose and plan always prevails and God always comes through. So we need to act on those things He's telling us to do.

It seems so simple.......

Disclaimer: As it is for all songs I write about, I haven't asked the band, or read anything pertaining to the meaning of this song. This is all me, so don't quote me on this interpretation, I'm just spilling out what's in my head.

Music Tuesday #1

Twitter does Music Monday, so I guess I'll do Music Tuesday

Song of the Week: The Difference by Philmont
You can listen to it on myspace, rhapsody or lala.
I was going to put a link to the lyrics, but no site had the correct ones so they're at the end on the entry :P (I'm picky).

You give the devil an inch and he'll take a mile...and then some. When I looked back over 2009, which in my mind was sooo awesome (mainly cuz I was 24, which is a great number) I realized it actually wasn't so great. Last year was difficult, and full of bad decisions that led me astray from a strong relationship with God. The separation just happened so subtley and gradually that I didn't really notice the change until I came to a point at the end of the year (when people do the usual life evaluation) and I just had to wonder, "How did I get here!?" Sure, I had some high points, like getting laid off from a job I hated & getting to go to Turkey, BUT concerning my walk with God, I wasn't in a very good place. My heart definitely needed to change! I couldn't remedy the bad decisions I made, but I could at least not make them again. The devil is tricky. He gets in your head. I rationalized dumb things I did & watered down my values and convictions as if I had never learned from any past mistakes at all. This song suddenly became epic--totally me! It says, "And I've tried so hard to mix the old life with the new. But there's not in between if I'm gonna follow You."
2 Corinthians 5:17 says "If we are in Christ we are a new creation..." and it's about time I started acting like one. Not just kind of like one sometimes, depending on the situatioin. "If You're really inside changing my life You would shine, You would be evident if there's a difference."
Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses around us, let us put aside the things that hinder us and the sin that entangles us and let us run with perseverance the race set before us."


Lyrics:
I check the map to make sure that I get it right
But still I don't know where You're taking me tonight
And I've tried so hard to mix the old life with the new
But there's not in between if I'm gonna follow You

There's gotta be a difference
It's gotta be significant
If You're really inside changing my life
You would shine, You would be evident
If there's a difference
There's a difference

Here I am, I've got this baggage by my side
But I am ready now to leave it all behind
So I'm taking this moment to tell You I'm open
I'm taking this moment to give You everything

We're not meant to be another face in the crowd

There's gotta be a difference
It's gotta be significant
'Cause You're really inside changing my life
And it's so evident that there's a difference
There's a difference

Songwriters: Glover, Ben; Prince, Josiah; Sams, Justin; Tuabe, Scott
The Difference lyrics © Up In The Mix Music

The MAN

God sometimes just picks the funniest times to talk to me.  I was in the middle of my very exciting workday when God was like, "So, Liko..." & I'm all, "NOW?  really?" cuz, y'know, I'm typing up a storm over there... & He's like, "Yes, now, I've got you listening.  Write this down." So I'm writing down all this stuff about when I first got saved my senior year of high school.  The reason I'm bringing this up is because we were sharing testimonies at our worship and prayer night.  When I tell mine, I usually discount the part where I first got saved and focus on a later incident where God really performed a miracle in my life.  God wanted me to revisit why I ached in my heart for salvation in the first place.

Flashback to October of 2002, a rundown of the state of my life:  At that point I had been through my father's death 3 years prior which I had never really dealt with.  I had a rocky relationship with my mother filled with guilt, fighting, and misunderstanding.  In retrospect she was doing what she knew how to do dealing with everything she was going through, but her love for me didn't come out in the best ways.  I was a social butterfly but emotionally reclusive, hiding my deep pain and personal problems from everyone, even my best friends.  I was proud to figure out to dissect a razor cartridge so I could cut myself and I had a couple of years of an eating disorder under my belt.  Things could have been worse, but needless to say, I was a giant mess.  What I knew of love seemed to be temporal, conditional, or performance based, especially because no one really knew all the things inside of me, they couldn't ever really love me for me, the REAL me.  I felt that all those things made me pretty unlovable but perhaps my facade made me tolerable.  Oh, and to ice the cake, my first love and I had just broken up September 1st.  Fast forward to September 14th, I'm not sure what I did that night, but usually the drama with me and my mama went down like: I have a fun night, come home, do something rude or say something sassy and we end up in a drawn out verbal battle where I always lost.  And every single time I've had it "up to here" with how my life was going, but really couldn't see any way out.  So I'm in the bathroom dismantling my razor cartridge and I remember something I was looking at on the internet the other day.  I'm pretty sure it was a link to NeedHim.org I had clicked on explaining why we need Jesus and forgiveness and how to gain salvation.  I left the page up but I wasn't ready to really get into this thing with Jesus.  I felt a tug to go back and read it again and I was so far down at my bottom I figured there was no way I could do life by myself anymore.  It's too difficult.  

I didn't know in advance God would stop the cutting or later miraculously heal my bulimia with one prayer or any of the other things He would change,  but at that moment I just wanted to know what real Love was.  Most people make another person the god in their life, expecting them to fill what's missing in their lives and cure that longing to be loved even though that's a lot of expectation on imperfect human beings.  So far, no person in my life could provide that for me and I so wanted to believe that someone could love me forever, unconditionally, no matter what I had done or said or would ever do in the future...just love me.  Jesus, with His perfect Love and Grace, promises that AND delivers.