Stand Up For Your Love!

Bono told me the other day to stand up for my love.

 

 

He told me to "Stand up in this dizzy world where a love sick eye can steal the view," and he asked if I can stand up to "Beauty, dictator of the heart," while also mentioning faith, hope, and love just like the apostle Paul does in 1 Corinthians 13.
 

After this, Bono goes on to say something really interesting. He goes on to say, "But while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."
 

And that really caught my ear, you know?
 

It caught my ear and I started thinking a lot about it and obviously I can't know for sure what Bono intended when he said that, but maybe what he's saying is something like, "yeah, definitely - faith, hope, and love are the most important things to stand up for" (and I think Bono would agree with Paul on the assertion that the most important virtue of them all is love (1 Corinthians 13:13)), but then, right after that, he's like: "but in the certainty of doing so, please 'Stop helping God across the road like (you would) a little old lady.'"  

 

 

Awesome movie clip of an old woman crossing a street

 

...That's super interesting to me because I would like to say that standing up for my faith, hope, and love in God is something that I'm really set on - it's something that I really consider to be the most important things to stand up for in life!... but then, in the midst of it, it's kind of like Bono is trying to keep me honest by saying that while I'm at it, I better not do it as if I were trying to help Him or something... it's like, "nah, man - God is extremely powerful and it's completely nuts for us to think that He needs our help in making Himself known," you know what  I mean?

 

I think that God definitely wants us to go and make disciples because He told us to do that (Matt. 28: 19-20); I think He definitely wants us to be prepared to preach the Word in season and out of season, because He encouraged Timothy to do that through the inspired writer Paul (2 Timothy 4:2); and I think He definitely wants us to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, because He actually told us that we would as a statement of fact (Acts 1:6).    
 

But at the same time, I don't think God ever needs our help as if He were somehow incapable of showing the world who He is on his own, or that He somehow needs us to do this favor for Him because He's getting old and tired and all the commotion in the world is making Him overwhelmed so He needs people like us who have all the right answers and all the right cliche catch phrases like "God is my co-pilot," or "God is my home-boy," or something absurd like that to save the world.  
 

Give me a break, man - do you really think God would even want to be those things?
 

I think God wants us to tell others about Himself only because we love Him (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), and only because it would be our greatest joy to do so (1 John 1:4), and only because our satisfaction in knowing Him is only augmented the more we share Him with others (Philippians 1:4b-5, 4:1).

It's interesting because Bono then goes on to say, "I got to stand up to ego but my ego is not really the enemy. It's like a small child crossing an eight lane highway, on a voyage of discovery."

And man alive, do I ever feel like that at times! Sometimes it's like I can be so stubborn in pursuing things that occasionally I bet people start to wonder if I'm doing it just because I'm prideful (and I suppose that that vice might seep into it occasionally), but in my mind it's really just that I'm trying to accomplish what I set out to do because I'm inspired to do so, and because I love it. That's all.

And then the song says this:

"Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas."

That's funny because Bono is a rock star and because Napoleon was short but he had big ideas and because Josephine was his girl and together they sure had one heck of a love story.

Bono is a guy with big ideas, he's the kind of guy that'll go crazy if he can't work towards them. In another one of his songs from this same album after he remarks that "every generation gets a chance to change the world," he asks, "Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?" (See 1 John 4:16-21). This question is then coupled along with the surprising statement: "The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear."

The truth is that love is often the most ridiculous way. It's often "not a hill, it's a mountain," but it's the best way, it's the perfect way, and it's the eternal way (1 Corinthians 13).

It's so cool then how he ends this song. He's like:

Let's shout until the darkness squeezes sparks of light!

Freak yeah. haha.


Picture Cited: http://www.neatorama.com/2012/03/23/the-10-greatest-love-affairs-in-history/

 

Song Smorgasbord

There was a really cool Indie band I used to listen to a lot in college called The Format and one of my favorite songs is “On you Porch” from their Snails EP. Some of my favorite few lines from this song go like this:

So now here I sit

In a hotel off of Sunset

My thoughts bounce off 

Of Sam's guitar

And that's that's the way it's been

Ever since we were kids but now

Now we've got something to prove

And then the chorus goes like this...

Cause what's left to lose

I've done enough

And if I fail well then I fail
But I gave it a shot

And these past three years
I know they've been hard

But now it's time to get out
Of the desert and into the sun

Even if it's alone

...And see, that was what I felt like right before I got commended to the Colombian mission field back in 2009... It was like I had something to prove and there wasn't a thing that anyone could do to keep from doing it.

Now though, the same lead vocalist from this band has turned pop and a few of the lyrics from his main song with his new band in their most recent album called "Some Nights" go like this:

Some nights, I stay up
Cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that
My lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish
They'd just fall off

But I still wake up,
I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure
What I stand for oh
What do I stand for?
What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know anymore...

And to be quite honest, a lot of times I feel the same way now.

Over two years time I went from being loved more than I've ever felt before to being despised more than I've ever felt before (and this by the same person), and over one year's time I went from seeing her literally every day to now seeing her occasionally as a ghost in my sleep and still not being sure what I stand for anymore. Do I stand up for my love for her? Do I stand up for the truth of what happened? Do I stand up for what I see when I look into my nephew (and/or nieces) eyes?

It's kind of funny cause all the Indie folks on YouTube have been like up in arms about how The Format was such a better band then Fun., and then all the Pop fans that have now somehow stumbled across The Format have been reading the Indie people's comments and are like: "Both are different music ventures and don't need to be compared to each other because they are both great in their own ways. So every one please get over yourselves (Aj Lewis)"... haha, that's kind of funny because it's so true.

...It's sort of crazy though how a song about uncertainty can get 47,264,452 hits on YouTube while a song by the same artist about determination only gets 497,343 (OOOOOk, Fine. I know that the kick-ass video and vocals in Some Nights might have at least a little bit to do with that haha...).

But anyway, as Switchfoot says, (and as I consider to be some of the most descriptive lyrics of postmodernism I've ever heard),... "See opinions are easier to swallow than facts, the grey instead of the whites and the blacks, if you shoot it too straight it won't come back, we're selling the news"..."Substance, oh substance, where have you been? You've been replaced by the masters of spin who write good looking books and write history in. We're selling the news"..."When nothing is sacred there's nothing to lose, when nothing is sacred all is consumed. We're still on the air, it must be the truth. We're selling the news"..."I wanna believe you, I wanna believe, but everything is in-between. The fact is fiction. The fact is fiction. I wanna believe you, I wanna believe, but everything I see is greed. The fact is fiction. Suspicion is the new religion."

 
...And in a lot of ways that's a pretty noble religion, right? I mean it's not condescending in any way, it's really politically correct, and when it comes right down to it - what it actually ends up being is a way of life that extremely tolerant and all-inclusive.

Awesome.

See, while a lot of people may think that there are a lot of religions that may be right; at the same time - the only religion in a lot of people's minds that is definitely wrong, is the one that says that IT is the only one that is right... Because naturally, some may say, that's what makes the proponent of it something like a "sociopath" or a "narcissist" or an "arrogant, pugnacious, religious prick"... or something like that.

...And let me just say that I don't really like the word "religion" anyway because it has a connotation of being something that you have to do as a human to find favor with God (and I believe that to be completely anti-Biblical), and so in that sense - yes. I agree that anyone who thinks that they are the ones that came up with the ultimate religious truth would be considered pretty straight up arrogant.

Because that's impossible.

...But what I also believe (and this is the belief that ultimately matters)... what I really believe is that there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to make it to God (Ephesians 2:8) (because if we could then that would give us a reason for boasting (Ephesians 2:9)), and that actually, what is really the case is that we have been saved entirely by grace through faith as a gift from God, exclusively in Jesus Christ, who is the only way, truth, and life (Ephesians 2:5,8, John 14:6).

And I believe that.

I believe it to the extent that while I may not be 100% certain about everything else in my life - I believe that I have been found in Christ. And what is more is that I believe that that discovery has been brought about not because of a righteousness of my own, but it's been brought about because of a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. A faith in Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9).

But on top of that, let me add this:

I still don't consider myself perfect.

I still don't consider myself to have arrived at my final goal.

Just like Paul said to the Church in Philippi as he was being held hostage for sharing the gospel, "Brothers and sisters, I still do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14)...

So yeah - that's basically what I wanted to share, and in conclusion let me mention a few more lines that have been going through my mind recently from one of those big time Jesus groups Called Hillsong United in a song entitled Hosanna. Some of the lyrics for their final bridge go like this, and I just think they're pretty awesome...

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

Let that be my cry.