It Could Be a Lot Worse - SQOTW

Another excellent series of lines in yet another cool song from the Vigilantes of Love.

faith she's a whistling train
running hard in the dark
and hope is like a thing untamed
gonna lay to waste your heart
love's a little bit of God
there for all to know
love's the everlasting arms
that never do let go

this is dangerous terrain
we're attempting to traverse
it's a crying shame
but it could be a lot worse

-- It Could Be a Lot Worse, VOL from the Live at the 40 Watt CD

I love the metaphors (and simile) that go with the Big 3 from the Love Chapter in 1st Corinthians. They're so fitting. We live in a world of darkness where there's only so much you can hold on to that's real and that will last.

Come and get it, here in the good ol' U.S. of A., we gotcher dressed for success, anything to achieve, ambition and greed that'll win you all yer lusts and make you ferget yer vanities at least until the next one comes rollin' down the pike and all fer the low, low price of yer single heart. That's right. You look good, then you feel good, and you play hard or work hard, take yer choice. It can all be yer's.

It is dangerous terrain. If it's not getting sucked into the culture until the proverbial point of no return, there's a world of depression that can leave you in grief for merely a lifetime. The old adage "misery loves company" isn't far from the truth, especially if you're the demon called Misery. And yeah, the sun shines and the sky is blue but you're fooling yourself if you don't think the darkness is all around and usually no more than a wrong step away.

What do we do then? We hold onto Christ with a faith that rumbles over and through those hard times, with that Headlight that leads us through the night. Trials and the pitfalls of life are going to come. We'll all experience death and loss, failure, sickness, unfairness, temptation and sin. And whether we stand or fall, faith carries us through and keeps us going. We keep believing in Him and believing in Him. Through the questions. Through the grief. Through the high times and the low. Holding on. Running hard in the dark.

Then, there's hope. Always looking for better with the confidence that what's wished for will come. Sometimes those hopes fail us and bring us to the end of our ropes. It really can lay our hearts to waste. Then, we hope some more. Our hope, hand-in-hand with our faith, tells us there's something better at the end of the track. Hope squints its eyes in the looking, but re-opens them quickly so it doesn't miss the good that's nearby, either.We hope for the small things and the great with the Eternal Hope within our hearts. And one day...

Lastly, there's love. A little bit of God there for all to know. What a beautiful sentiment! Although love is not God, God is love. What a privilege that we can know and share that love. And how comforting that even when our hope and our faith fail us (or when they don't), God still loves us. HE LOVES US!!! With a love that's so unyielding, loyal, and steadfast that nothing can change or move it. Not even our unworthy selves. Everlasting arms that NEVER... do... let... go.

With our sin and our selfishness and our idolatry, it is a crying shame. Each of us can honestly say that we made it necessary for Christ to go to the Cross. For blame, we can look no farther than our own skin. My own skin. I guess it can be argued, but from my way of thinking, God didn't have to send His son. By the virtuelessness of our sin, we don't deserve the love. Or the hope. Which would mean there'd be no use for the faith. But God did love us. So much He sent himself to be clothed in human skin, to live a life of total Godly obedience, and then to die unjustly on a Cross to take on all the holy wrath that was stored for the children of sin. Yeah, it's a crying shame, but it could be a whole, whole lot worse. Thank God that it's not.

For God so loved the world...

Vigilantes of Love