"children drop your chains and sing"

A benefit of having a brother and cousin (who are rather on the up-and-up when it comes to Christian contemporary music) is they keep you well-informed on the best songs out there. So when Daniel bought Tenth Avenue North's The Struggle c.d., I had high high hopes.

 Mike Donahey's music blesses me more and more the better I get to know it. This c.d. is full of wonderful songs, but one in particular I have taken as my catch-phrase for 2013...

"The Struggle"

"There's a wreckage, there's a fire

There's a weakness in my love

There's a hunger I can't control.

Lord I falter, and I fall down 

Then I hold onto the chains You broke

When You came down and saved my soul.

Save my soul."

This verse is my heart's cry when I'm hurting...it was David's heart's cry in the Psalms, and I think it is the prayer of every Christian at times. (And as a purely aesthetic thing, I love the play on S.O.S. "save our ship" turned to "Save my soul") This verse just pins those moments of temptation and weakness and mourning. Then comes the chorus:

"Hallelujah!

We are free to struggle,

We're not struggling to be free.

Your blood bought and makes us children

So children drop your chains and sing."

So profound. So beautiful. "We are free to struggle. We're not struggling to be free." When I first heard this song I got chills...and it's happened every time since. God's love for me. His passion and longing for His wandering people to repent and come home to His arms.// I love how the author of this song pegged the difference grace makes: as Christians we are free to struggle--the battle and war against and wrestle temptations. But we're not in bondage. We're not struggling to be free.

"So I look. Do I still fail?

Do I withold? Do I give into temptations?

On my own I am bankrupt

I will trust You. I will take You at Your word.

You promise."

Then the chorus again. A cry for the fulfillment of this promise from Jesus...and the piercing knowledge that He will give it. This promise, this oath, this glorious, incomprehensible grace. 

"Hallelujah, death is overcome

And we are breathing.

Hallelujah our stone hearts become flesh,

a flesh that's beating.

Hallelujah chains have been undone

and we are singing.

Hallelujah the fire has begun.

Can you feel it?"

The victory in this verse reminds me so of that passage in Romans: (8:38-39) 

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

"Hallelujah!

We are free to struggle,

We're not struggling to be free.

Your blood bought and makes us children

So children drop your chains and sing."