shine on me.

Published by Aundre | Filed under Uncategorized

When Nothing is Sound was released by Switchfoot in 2005, I was a gawky teenager who had just finished his first week of high school and had yet to see his 14^th birthday. I did however receive the cd as an early gift, so that Friday night I listened to it until I got a feel for most of the songs, and then I watched the bonus DVD with it. I still remember the phrase that popped on the screen that night:

“It’s a strange consolation, in our dizzy breathless race for happiness to find that you will never outrun the horizon”.

So its been 4 years since then, and now I am spending a lot of time listening to Switchfoot’s new song Mess of Me because their new record Hello Hurricane is coming out in November, and to be honest I am really hung up on the one part of the song that says, “I’ve made a mess of me, I want to reverse this tragedy, I’ve made a mess of me, I want to spend the rest of my life alive.”

I am hung up on it I guess because I know that due to some of my decisions, some selfish, and others difficult but necessary; my life feels like a big mess right now. And to be honest its really difficult to figure out whether or not things would have been better if I changed how I had handled things.

So that’s where half of me has been this last month or so, second guessing. The other half of me has been wrestling with this idea that God believes in me.

I mean, I can’t count how many times I have talked to someone about faith, about how big or amazing God is and how its ludicrous for us not to find him utterly captivating. But what about God believing in me and in you?

What if, the reason why we exist is because he willed it and he believes that we can do things, miraculous things, even though we decide so many times not to believe in anything beyond what we can do?

If God is God, then why would our lives include friends we weren’t meant to meet, trials we could never overcome and experiences that were meaningless, wouldn’t it make more sense, in every sense of the word logic, that God believes that we are capable of becoming the beautiful masterpieces he meant us to be? Sorry for the heavy amount of Switchfoot references, but there is this song called Economy of Mercy that says  “we are bruised and broken masterpieces, but we did not paint ourselves.”

Let that soak into your skull for a minute. You, Miriam, Lex, Jessica, Daniel, Tim, Jeff, whatever your name is, are a masterpiece. You are a masterpiece. Won’t you let him finish his work in you?

What I mean is this, in Genesis, there is the story of Joseph, a young boy who had great dreams, but was sold into slavery because his brothers allowed their jealousy to poison their love for their brother and their judgment. Eventually after many years of slavery and imprisonment for absolutely nothing, he had the opportunity to save his family from famine. And only because of his imprisonment, and his suffering was he in that position. I know it sounds crazy, but if God believes in you, then you are never too far for hope, then maybe salvation is right where you are at, and maybe just maybe who you are, is a result of those necessary but painful times. Friends, God believes in you, in who you are, and in your ability to live.

Although I am my own worst enemy, although I have made a mess of me, God believes in that mess and for that reason I will try my hardest to continue to live.