Do you ever give God cheek? Ever give him “what for”? I know people who have got really angry with God sometimes. I can’t say I’ve ever lost my temper with God. I’ve had my questions, sure. I’ve cried out to God for help, but I’ve always been too scared to cross that line and wag my finger!
I was listening to the radio today and a song came on – Hold My Heart by Tenth Avenue North. I love these guys. They have some great songs. I even have the album this song is on, but it never occurred to me before how cheeky this song is – in my opinion. What do you think?
The one line that stuck out to me today was, “If You’re everything You say You are, won’t You come close and hold my heart…“. Does God not deserve a little more respect than that, or am I just being soft?
Here’s the lyrics of the song:
How long must I pray, must I pray to You?
How long must I wait, must I wait for You?
How long ’til I see Your face, see You shining through?
I’m on my knees, begging You to notice me.
I’m on my knees, Father will you turn to me?One tear in the dropping rain,
One voice in the sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin’ heart?
One light, that’s all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You’re everything You say You are
Won’t You come close and hold my heartI’ve been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there’s no other way, I’m done asking why.
Cuz I’m on my knees, begging You to turn to me
I’m on my knees, Father will you run to me?One tear in the dropping rain,
One voice in the sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin’ heart?
One light, that’s all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You’re everything You say You are
Won’t You come close and hold my heart.So many questions without answers, Your promises remain
I can’t sleep but I’ll take my chances to hear You call my name
To hear You call my nameOne tear in the dropping rain,
One voice in the sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin’ heart?
One light, that’s all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You’re everything You say You are
Won’t You come close and hold my heart.Hold my heart, could you hold my heart?
Hold my heart.
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There are times when we do have those sort of questions and feelings of ‘why is this happening’. We shouldn’t be afraid to give God these questions as there is no doubt that He has a full understanding of what is going on in our lives and fully understands our feelings. Sometimes it’s a process. And sometimes going through that process leads to redemption and character building.
Another point is that God is our Father. You should be able to go to your parents and express how you feel without fear. Even when that feeling is anger. As a parent I can’t imagine holding out on forgiveness for my child on anything. God as our Father is the same.
I think for me it just sounds a lot like a good chunk of the Psalms. I get your point, but it seems like this is the pattern of those that wrote much of Scripture.
I think God is good enough that he doesn’t need me to say nice things to him all the time. I mean, where you and I might get some of our self worth from compliments or praises, God just doesn’t. And where you and I might feel put down or “less than” when someone gets angry with us, I don’t think God does.
I’ve wrestled with this too though. I struggle with “Jesus is my friend” as if He and I were on equal ground. I never want to lose the reverence for who God is in Isaiah 6 for example. Yet, it seems like God is constantly trying to reach out to us, and to be more intimate with us. It’s unnerving that He would want that. I think a God who enters into human history with skin on is a pretty strong argument for saying that He wants that level of intimacy and relationship with us.
To me it’s one of those situations where we ask “Is the proper response to God reverence or authenticity?” And I think the answer is “yes.”
It’d be better to say
“Since You’re everything you say to be, come and hold my heart”
I view those words more of a challenge to God than a lament. I know we can lament at times, but should we put it in a song to sing and be sung? How does that fit in with Paul’s advice to rejoice in the Lord always?
I guess the good thing about a song like this is that people may be able to relate to it more than the usual collection of christian songs.
God allowed Job to challenge Him in this way. What one have to be careful of is when God challenges us back. God showed Job that He was *no* being unfair, but Job needed to be in that place before he would understand and accept it.
I should be acceptable to come before God with whatever is on your heart, even if that includes anquish. Should we rail against unseen forces we cant’ control, or bring that anquish to the One who can do something about it.
Even Christ cried out in anquish – “my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yes, Paul calls us to joy, but realistically, we’re not always at that place, are we? And if our music only reflects “Happy, happy, joy, joy?” are we being hypocritical?
This is what I think. Yes, Job went through such a hard time, as did Jesus on the cross. The bible records these events in good detail. It goes a long way to teach us about God’s character, His faithfulness, His steadfastness, His purpose, His love. There are times when our little brains cannot fathom the big picture (or story) God is piecing together in our lives and it only leaves us with searching questions and accusations.
What I don’t understand is, there are people who say there are not enough songs of lament and all we sing about is “Happy happy, joy joy”. I think songs that express trials are good – as long as they offer a way out.
Songs serve a few purposes in the church. First and foremost they are to give God glory and honour. A byproduct of that is teaching the singer more about Who they are worshipping. This is why I thik a song needs to leave the singer with hope – a way out of their current crappy situation.
If not, I don’t follow how getting together and singing a load of sad, desperate songs is good for anyone’s soul.
(We’re drifting into another conversation now we’ve had many times before about the purpose of laments, but I guess it’s related to the original post).
I know this is an old thread but this is something that I’ve had much time to think about.
I love my God but have been times when I was so close to ruin and where my enemies were all around with seemingly no help from my savior…. during one of hardest times my family were out of the house and I was all alone.
I could take it no longer, I yelled at God, told him I felt left alone… that all the blessing he gave were only to build me up so that I could really fail, fall hard.
How this was all just for his sick amusement.
After my voice failed me and I was almost at the point of passing out from exhaustion I collapsed in tears.
When the moment had passed… I heard very clearly in my heart the first words I had heard in month… He simply said “There, that’s all I wanted. For you to finally be honest with me”.
We have to remember that God already knows what we think and feel. There is no point in pretense with God.
I will take it one further to say that God doesn’t need us to pump up his ego, he’s not a attention grabber who needs hordes of drones praising his name.
I truly feel he would rather have one honest man/woman than 10,000 people saying how happy they are with him when they have a bone to pick with him.
We are not his underlings, we are not his servants, we are not even just his friends, we are his children with all the rights and privileges. He has literally given more than anyone could give to allow us the freedom to tell him how we feel. He is big enough to take it. I suggest that we all start walking in this freedom.
I was amazed how much peace came in after my moment of honesty. I knew as I was saying the words that they weren’t true and my relationship with God deepened that day.
Thank God other people are learning this aspect of a relationship with the creator of the universe.