I'll be honest. When I was planning on doing another Switchfoot song tonight, I wasn't sure which one I wanted to do. I like all of the songs off the new album, but I wasn't positive on the meaning on most of them. So I looked up the lyrics, and when I read these I was blown away by how obvious it was that this is a song to God.
Right away, he talks about the depravity of his situation. The chains that hold me back inside are the prisons of my mind. He doesn't try and sugarcoat it or put the blame on anyone else. He is trapped in prisons in his mind, just like the rest of us. I don't know about you, but I know for me a majority of my struggles are in my mind. It's fairly easy to be a "good" person by the world's standards and not sin publicly. However, while I may have a smile on my face, I may be judging the person I'm talking to. Prison in my mind. Or I may think to highly of myself or too lowly of myself. Prison in my mind. This list can go on and on, but I'll stop now. I think you get the picture.
What's great though is that Jon doesn't dwell on his depravity. He turns straight to God. Free, come set me free--down on my knees--I still believe you can save me from me. We can't do this on our own. We can't free ourselves from prisons in our minds. We need God. Praise God that He loves us so much that He gave up His son to die for us. It's in Christ's resurrection that we can come to God and ask Him to set us free. And the best part about it? He is ready and willing. All He wants us to do is sincerely ask. I say sincerely because we can't just say "God, free me. Do a work in my life." once and go on living life like nothing happened, expecting Him to change us. We must respond to the love He shows us, however that may look to you. There isn't a one track, 4 step process to becoming purified. God works in each person's life differently.
What Christ does ask for though, is our whole life. Not Sundays, not my language, not my "bad influences." No. He wants our entire lives. I think Jesus said it best:
Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:38
Compared to our love for Christ, our love towards our family and friends looks like hate. Not only that, but we must lose our lives here in order to gain life with the Father. Now that is giving up your entire life.
The second verse goes through more problems with ourselves and our sad attempts at fixing it without Christ. For instance. I try to live the light of day--Why would I do what I hate--But when I try to reach above--I only hurt the ones I love. When we trying to do things on our own, we're only hurting ourselves and the people we love. Let's let God do it; He always seems to do it right. Always.
One last line talks about chains being broken. Again, the word of the Lord says it better than I could ever try. This is the Lord talking about what kind of work He will do when we fast the right way:
Is this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Isaiah 58:6
Jon nailed it when he wrote that we cages and prison cells in our hearts. He also nailed it by going to God to be set free. It's cool how music can be made to honor God, and it's not a slow, soft melody. As you heard above, this song is more of a traditional rock song, as opposed to "Enough to Let Me Go."
Well that's all I got on that song. What are your thoughts on "Free"?
On a completely unrelated note, I'll leave you with a AW Tozer quote I saw on twitter (follow him at @TozerAW):
If what we believe doesn't make God more real to us, if it doesn't make us more Christlike, of what value is it? -AW Tozer
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