Love Song for a Savior

In open fields of wild flowers,
She breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses
In no simple language
Someday she'll understand the meaning of it all

He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call her and she will come running
Fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she'll pray,
"I want to fall in love with You"

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
Who stare into nowhere, and can't feel the chains on their souls

It seems too easy to call you "Savior",
Not close enough to call you "God"
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
To show my devotion

-Jars of Clay "Love Song for a Savior" (Jars of Clay)
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Love. "A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person." I love how that is put.  Profoundly tender. Passionate affection.

I chose this song for the beauty of it. This is an older song. It's from Jars of Clay's first album. This song was their third to hit radio in 1996. Over 13 years later and I'm still stunned by the words of it. Especially the bridge that speaks of how it's to easy to call him Savior, yet I'm not close enough to call you God. Man, how I find myself there so often. I sit and think of words that can show my devotion. No words seem to measure up to the bigness of God. This song, a representation of a "love song" to a Savior.

Lately, with the help of my adorable younger sisters, 'N Sync circa 1998 has been blaring from the speakers of my house. In the last week, as I have danced like a fool (because I still remember every lyric and dance move) to these songs, I have been listening to the words of them. Each one is a "love song" to a girl; or later a "break up" song, maybe to the same girl. Each song tries so hard to identify how this guy feels about this girl. In one song, the band sings "I drive myself crazy, thinking of you... I drive myself crazy wanting you the way that I do." 

Now, rarely can I say I gain deep theological insight from old school boy band music; but I can say, God really showed me, as I have been striving to love God more and understand a small fracture of his love for me, that these songs represent so much more then what we think of them as. Each song is a longing to fill the "deepest part of ourselves" with this unimaginable love from another person. We drive ourselves crazy thinking about this person, or this dream; yet those things will never satisfy or pacify what God placed in us. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." God has placed eternity in our hearts. He has placed a desire in us, from the foundation of the world, to long for him, to need him, and to desire him. Yet I find I "drive myself crazy" thinking of so many other things, wanting so many other things, instead of God. I try to pacify my God given desire with dreams, that can never fill the God sized place in my heart.

So as you go throughout the rest of your week, I want to challenge you. Evaluate what you drive yourself crazy thinking about and wanting, that is never going to fill the space for eternity God has placed in your heart. Ask God to forgive you for trying to pacify and satisfy this place and surrender it back over to God. Allow him to woo you. Give him the chance to sing a love song over you, as you sing one back to him.

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17