(A little back-story: It’s summer… I don’t have to write well for anything. So, this was a little project that I picked up to prove to myself that I could still write the way I learned in AP English. The first section is from June 28th, I picked it up again today and finished it. Let me know if you enjoyed the writing style.)
Every so often, we hear some terribly important address that sums up the state of the free world. Things like gas prices, the exchange rate of the dollar, the looming “recession” manage to make the highlights. On a smaller scale, if you go to church on Sunday morning—Saturday night in my case—or if you listen to Rush, Michael Savage, or some similarly conceited conservative pundit, you have doubtlessly heard about the ‘less significant’ ailments of today’s culture. These bigmouthed, microphone equipped men rave about the evils of political corruption, corruption in the mainstream media, corruption in schools, and if you’re lucky they might even talk about the crabgrass that’s corrupting your backyard.
There’s something similar about all the messages that are being tossed around the nation. There‘s one uniting talking point that the conservative media cannot divorce. This terrible, terrible misconception pervades our headlines and perforates our ears its honey-coated ego-satisfying spin: It is the concept that it that the biggest problems in the world are large scale. Rush Limbaugh can spend a whole hour yelling about abortion, homosexual governors, and liberals, but he—like many other commentators—misses the point. I beg, ardently, to differ.
Let me plead with you. Let me try to convince you that there is something bigger than gas prices, global warming, or illegal immigrants. Let me tell you about the war that’s ravishing every single person all around the world. From the old man in Tibet who will die tomorrow to the unwanted American baby who was conceived yesterday: No one is unaffected. I’m talking about the conflict that has owned mankind since Eve bit the apple. I’m talking about the cause of all problems in the world today. This is my ‘State Of Love Address.’
Today has been filled with examples of what love isn’t:
Love isn’t the worn, teal minivan parked next to the “gentlemen’s club.”
“Love is patient” Love waits on the Lord to blossom, it’s too delicate and wondrous to be found in a brothel.
Love isn’t “making out” in the back of a van in 9th grade.
“Love does not insist on it’s own way” like passion does.
Love isn’t sexual desire for someone of the same gender.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the Truth.”
“If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. For now we see in a mirror dimly… Now we know in part; in eternity we shall know fully… So now abide in faith, hope and love; but remember that the greatest of these three is love.”
Every day seems to burst with examples of how sin has taken beautiful, pure, almost supernatural human passion and twisted, and contorted, and mutated it into lustful self-destruction.
For the past several weeks, the #1 selling song on iTunes has been “I kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry. Yeah—you read that right—KATY Perry. I was disgusted by the sin that the song implies. This week, I got curious about why the song remained #1 even after a phenomenal album from Coldplay should have eclipsed it. Tonight, I finally sat down and listened to the song via YouTube.
I was stunned.
Musically, I think it’s a pop masterpiece. The beat is addicting, and Perry’s surreptitious voice drives the song very well. It left me stunned to the point of desperation—How could someone with such talent and such an amazing voice devote her abilities to perversion and lies? Here are some samples from the lyric sheet: The tagline is obviously “I kissed a girl, and I liked it.” But other samples include, “It felt so wrong; it felt so right” “…my experimental game, it’s human nature.”
Yeah… Human nature… She got that bit right, but later she says something that typifies the song as just another part of humanity’s struggle to find what we all call ‘love.’ Katy says, “[it’s] Too good to deny it. ‘Ain’t no big deal; it’s innocent.”
I suppose this is the one line that justifies the whole song in Ms. Perry’s eyes. “It’s innocent…”
How can you be more misguided?
Why can’t she see the light of Jesus shining down? Why can’t she turn her voice to give glory to the one who truly loves her?
Love is not kissing a girl and liking it.
Love is not what the hearts of this world are seeking after.
True. Love. Is. Eternal.
Love is from God. No matter how hard this world tries, we will never come close to the true, joyous, inebriating, rapturous, beautiful, illuminating, delivering, bountiful, boundless, elating, constant love that God feels for us. (phew… I think John Piper may be rubbing off on me…)
Now, how can what’s wrong with the world be made right?
Only we Christians can change the State of Love. We hold the key to ultimate joy and satisfaction… Yet all too often we either clutch that key tight to our chest, believing in its power but afraid to share it with anyone else. Sometimes we smoothly tuck it into our back pocket or purse so we can just go about life as if we never had it.
Here comes the part where I plead with you and with my own heart: Share the Gospel. Hold that key out to anyone who would reach out, anyone who would repent, anyone who the Holy Spirit leads to you.
Know that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8 gives some great perspective on all this. :-)
-Wes
“It started out with a feeling, which then grew into a hope, which then turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word. And then that word grew louder and louder ‘till it was a battlecry.”-The Call by Regina Spektor
