Patrolman

Tonight I spent some time with my two friends Kristen and Calin who are leaving for Uganda in the morning to deliver audio Bibles and do some photo journalism stuff. I just wrote a song, inspired by the breath-stealing storm that we drove home through from Buca di Beppo's. For the entire drive, over an hour, there was constant flashing and flickering of lightning. After a while of being awed, I just began to get bored with it. I started to talk to God about it, saying things like, "Lord, it would be really sweet if there was neon blue lightning, and sparks came up when it 'hit the ground.'" I have this problem, that's how I see it at least for now, that I see something and I usually want to change it. When I walk around campus I always imagine that the grass--instead of being just green--is colored in rows like a rainbow. And that trees have yellow bark with white leaves. Just something that I'm not used to seeing, that would catch me off guard and really make me stop and stare at it.

Like I've said before, I sometimes get off track and lose my wonder of God's creation. Lightning is sweet, but I always want to take it further, add more to it. Sadly, there are no tears in my eyes right now. I want to come back to the place where I'm as a little child marveling at everything God has done. I want it to be genuine, and I want to put this part of me in the shredder and burn it; this part that depreciates the wonders of God's hands.

The song I wrote is called "Patrolman," and here are the lyrics:

Verse 1
God, how many times do I really have a better idea than You
Just because I think that using more colors would be a wiser choice to light the sky
God, forgive me for my selfish thoughts
For You know what You want more than I can see

Chorus
I surrender my patrol at Your borders
Take me as far as You can, Lord, don't keep me waiting for You to show
I'm crying out because I'm craving more of You

Verse 2
God, I don't want to take credit for Your work through me
It's so easy to cast away thoughts of humility when You seem so far away
A violent death is what I need to bring me to my knees
I'm tired of thinking I have a better way around things

Outro
This box isn't big enough for the both of us
So I'll burn it to the ground
And dance around the glory of the Lord
Who knows me inside out

Here's some of the meaning. The first verse is what I was talking about up top about the lightning, etc. I want my life to be about what God wants, and hopefully it is. The chorus is where the name comes from, "Patrolman." As we were driving home, I thought of God driving up to the border of how far I'd let Him go in my life, what I imagined God would do, and as He wanted to pass, I would put down the gate and say no. I'm done with that, and I want to let Him pass now. I want everything that God has for me, I want to suck Him dry of everything He has to give. In any situation, I feel that I enter with some sort of expectation, and sometimes my expectations for God are extremely shallow. I'm not used to giving a "word of knowledge" or prophecy to someone, even healing someone, but I want to be open to it at all times. I just want God. I'm learning to hate my life more and more now, just like Jesus says in Matthew 10:39. Not as in hating to exist (although I really long for Heaven), but as in not loving my life enough that I still grasp tightly to the reigns and pull in my own direction. My life is the Lord Jesus', and He will decide what I do in a day (that's what I'm aiming for, completely). The last part of the second line,"don't keep me waiting for You to show." It's a bold line; if I'm honored to be used by God somehow, then I want to have to wait for God's timing for it to happen, not have God wait for me to be ready. May it be on God that I wait, and not myself.

Then the second verse. It's about how we wake up, we breathe in, we breathe out, our limber joints move us from place to place as our muscles stretch and contract, and all the while Jesus puts no neon signs above our beds to remind of that He gave us all these things for the day. Almost like we're renting them, but He doesn't make us fill out the paper work. Jesus owns everything we could imagine, even the breath in our lungs, but He's so humble and powerful that He doesn't stamp His name all over us. It basically is, I mean no one else can create atoms or tissues, but you know what I mean--hopefully.

I keep coming back to this idea of putting myself to a violent death. I hate violence: guns, knives, hatred, anger, it all makes me sick. But when it comes to me and the Lord, I want to be as dead as possible; John 3:30, "He must increase, and I must decrease." It doesn't say, "I must decrease, He must increase." God even comes first when he says this. I am completely useless in and of myself, and until I truly realize that, I'll never live up to my full potential in God's Kingdom. I want to make sure that I'm dead, completely. Not like in those movies where you think someone is gone and then they keep coming back. No, I want the worst death possible, to be sure that I'm not going to get in the way. And honestly, I'm tired and sore from thinking that I have a better way to go about things.

That brings us to the outro portion of the song. Just as much as I put God in a box, I also put myself in a box. Ephesians 3:20 says,"With God's power working in us, He can do much, much more than we can ask or imagine." And Philippians 2:13 says,"because God is working in you to help you want to and be able to do what pleases Him." I liked the imagery of God and I both stepping out of the box and burning it to the ground, so that we could never go back in. And in my joy I begin to dance.