I think this song is about a Christian's struggle with bitterness toward God. It is the "dark night of the soul" experience when a believer is going through a rough time and experiencing much grief "These lonely tears I cry/They keep me in chains and I wish they'd release me" The believer knows that God can reach out to him and give comfort "With Your arms open wide and You try to embrace me" and he also knows the consequences of turning from God "Cold is the night but/Colder still is the heart made of stone, turned from clay" There aren't many people more bitter than those who experience God and then turn from him and turn their hearts to stone.
Much like what oviazcan said, it is the experience of a believer growing in God. It's much like C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed where the believer knows the right thing to think and how God is but his emotions and feelings fight against his knowledge. There was a struggle between Lewis' knowledge of who God was and how he felt toward God in his time of grief.
When you first become a Christian you do see things as very black and white but as you grow you come to realize that the only thing that is truly black and white is Christ's sacrifice and everything else is very gray. Our grief is characterized in this song as being black and white because when you go through a hard time you see things in extremes. In the end God promises that if we follow him that will fade to gray.
I think the song is talking about what A.W. Tozer called "the souls paradox of love". He said that those that have found God pursue Him hard, whereas religionists are too easily satisfied and after they say a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision they have no need of God.
I think the song is talking about what A.W. Tozer called "the souls paradox of love". He said that those that have found God pursue Him hard, whereas religionists are too easily satisfied and after they say a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision they have no need of God.
Jesus said that all that come to Him and drink would never thirst again. But why will they never thirst again? Because they have rivers of living water flowing from within them. Meaning that those who believe in Christ, have Christ living...
Jesus said that all that come to Him and drink would never thirst again. But why will they never thirst again? Because they have rivers of living water flowing from within them. Meaning that those who believe in Christ, have Christ living within, so that they are perpetually drinking Him. So, when he says that Christians never thirst, he means they never go outside of Christ to quench their thirst. But to be a believer is to perpetually drink Christ - which means we perpetually thirst for Him. Living people need air, food and water. Dead people don't.
We are too quick to define Christianity as being satisfied with a decision we have made. We categorize the world into black and white. People that are satisfied in their decision to receive Christ and people that are not. Unfortunately, those that still desire more of Christ we lump into the "have not" category. But to love Christ is sometimes to go through darkness or night. We grieve for our own sin, and doubts. We are not as faithful to God as he is to us. Christians are not those that do not go through darkness and feel spiritual grief and spiritual hunger and thirst. Christians are those that constantly return to Christ for protection and nourishment. Better to go through that coldness than to be satisfied with our stoney religious heart.
C.S. Lewis said it this way in his book surprised by joy:
"True, it was desire, not possession. But then what I had felt on the walk had also been desire, and only possession in so far as that kind of desire is itself desirable, is the fullest possession we can know on earth; or rather, because the very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be stabbed again, was itself again such a stabbing."
I think this song is about a Christian's struggle with bitterness toward God. It is the "dark night of the soul" experience when a believer is going through a rough time and experiencing much grief "These lonely tears I cry/They keep me in chains and I wish they'd release me" The believer knows that God can reach out to him and give comfort "With Your arms open wide and You try to embrace me" and he also knows the consequences of turning from God "Cold is the night but/Colder still is the heart made of stone, turned from clay" There aren't many people more bitter than those who experience God and then turn from him and turn their hearts to stone.
Much like what oviazcan said, it is the experience of a believer growing in God. It's much like C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed where the believer knows the right thing to think and how God is but his emotions and feelings fight against his knowledge. There was a struggle between Lewis' knowledge of who God was and how he felt toward God in his time of grief.
When you first become a Christian you do see things as very black and white but as you grow you come to realize that the only thing that is truly black and white is Christ's sacrifice and everything else is very gray. Our grief is characterized in this song as being black and white because when you go through a hard time you see things in extremes. In the end God promises that if we follow him that will fade to gray.
I think the song is talking about what A.W. Tozer called "the souls paradox of love". He said that those that have found God pursue Him hard, whereas religionists are too easily satisfied and after they say a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision they have no need of God.
I think the song is talking about what A.W. Tozer called "the souls paradox of love". He said that those that have found God pursue Him hard, whereas religionists are too easily satisfied and after they say a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision they have no need of God.
Jesus said that all that come to Him and drink would never thirst again. But why will they never thirst again? Because they have rivers of living water flowing from within them. Meaning that those who believe in Christ, have Christ living...
Jesus said that all that come to Him and drink would never thirst again. But why will they never thirst again? Because they have rivers of living water flowing from within them. Meaning that those who believe in Christ, have Christ living within, so that they are perpetually drinking Him. So, when he says that Christians never thirst, he means they never go outside of Christ to quench their thirst. But to be a believer is to perpetually drink Christ - which means we perpetually thirst for Him. Living people need air, food and water. Dead people don't.
We are too quick to define Christianity as being satisfied with a decision we have made. We categorize the world into black and white. People that are satisfied in their decision to receive Christ and people that are not. Unfortunately, those that still desire more of Christ we lump into the "have not" category. But to love Christ is sometimes to go through darkness or night. We grieve for our own sin, and doubts. We are not as faithful to God as he is to us. Christians are not those that do not go through darkness and feel spiritual grief and spiritual hunger and thirst. Christians are those that constantly return to Christ for protection and nourishment. Better to go through that coldness than to be satisfied with our stoney religious heart.
C.S. Lewis said it this way in his book surprised by joy:
"True, it was desire, not possession. But then what I had felt on the walk had also been desire, and only possession in so far as that kind of desire is itself desirable, is the fullest possession we can know on earth; or rather, because the very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be stabbed again, was itself again such a stabbing."