I created my first FineTune playlist in a whirl over the weekend, on my brother’s computer. He had just introduced me to the service, and I was having fun with it.
Tonight, as I was flipping through the playlist, I ran across a song I had added that I remember from my college years (though it was recorded a year or two earlier): “Your Love Broke Through,” by the late Keith Green. Green was a fascinating and charismatic figure, and I am amazed no one has ever thought to make a movie about him. An admirable iconoclast who at one point forsook the Christian music industry and gave his albums away for whatever people could afford to pay for them, he was also made some anti-Catholic statements which surprised and bothered me.
Keith, two of his young children, and nine other people died in a tragic 1982 plane crash, in a small plane which investigators later found to be over capacity.
Anyway, I was listening to a little bit of “Your Love Broke Through” tonight. Here is the chorus:
Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed
Until your love broke through
I’ve been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me
Until your love broke through
What a beautiful song, and what a powerful image of the joy of salvation. Do I still have that kind of joy? Do I still feel the reality of God’s love in the way I felt it back when I was listening to Keith’s records in college? Or have I become old and lazy and apathetic and cold-hearted? I’d like to think that I still have a sense of joy and wonder, especially when I participate in things like mission trips or some really meaningful church service. But do I really have that kind of joy day-to-day? I get so frustrated with specifics about my job, my finances, my personal life. Today, after returning from a pleasant vacation, I had a miserable cold and I returned to a busy and burdensome day digging out from a backlog at work. I felt like real life had resumed. But Keith’s song indicates, as I’ve glibly stated in the past, that joy is the reality and the world’s priorities are the illusion.
Do I still have that truth clear in my mind? And if I don’t, how can I get it back? Keith’s motto was “No Compromise.” If my life isn’t what it ought to be, is it because I have compromised my spirituality?
No easy answers or snap conclusions. I know that God loves me and I am safe in his arms. Still, perhaps I need to refocus, reassess, reprioritize, refresh.