Song Analysis and Summer Registration

Okay, let’s keep last things first: summer registration. I more or less set up my summer semester today. It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve made it to this point already. What’s also hard to believe is how convinced I’ve been up until now that eventually there would be a class offered in which I would have some margin of interest. It doesn’t look to be. CICS will manage to suck from beginning to end. That’s impressive! It’s also quite enough talk about Ball State for this edition of This Blog and You.

Now I know that most people consider me to be something of a spiritual juggernaut, and quite above the struggles and insecurities that normal folks have to muddle with all the time. That being the case, what I’m about to submit may come as a surprise to some: I sometimes struggle to have an eternal perspective. It’s true! I occasionally lose track of the concept that my worth, my joy, my validation, my every fulfillment is hung tenderly upon the Son of God. With that, I go through several peculiar states of mind when I feel like somebody doesn’t love me very much, or when I am guilty of hypocrisy, or when the praise of man seems so devastatingly absent from my life.

As I was pounding out this entry, Derek Webb’s song I Repent was playing. Let me see if he’s full of crap.

Line 2: I repent, I repent of living like I deserve anything
I identify with this pretty heavily. When I get frustrated that God has not answered my prayers, or I think that He’s “holding out” on me in some way, I am not considering how unworthy I am to even approach His throne! I also forget about Romans 8:32.

Line 7: I repent, I repent of paying for what I get for free
You know? Every time I condemn myself for a sin, every time I heap guilt upon myself and let it linger, I am, in a certain sense, trying to earn the forgiveness that Christ has so mercifully and sacrificially handed to me. The gift of Jesus is free. I can’t pay for it.

Lines 8 and 9: and for the way I believe that I am living right by trading sins for others that are easier to hide
Oh man, how easy is it to buy into this? I condemn a man who sleeps with his girlfriend while my own heart offers refuge to a company of lusts

Line 11: I repent judging by a law that even I can't keep
Interestingly, I have never actually done this, but I assume that most of you have, ‘cause you suck.

There’s a mess of other worthwhile junk in the song, but those particular lines kind of stuck out to me the most.

Jonny Wilkinson passed 1,000 Test points this weekend (Test points are earned during international games). He’s about 90 short of holding the world record.

God bless you all!

-Ryan