Stop Helping God Over the Road
'I was born to sing for you/ I didn't have a choice but/ to lift you up and sing whatever song you wanted me to/ I give you back my voice/ From the womb my first cry/ It was a joyful noise/ Justified till we die/ you and I will magnify/the Magnificent./Magnificent./
I've been in every black hole/At the altar of the dark star/My body's now a begging bowl/ begging to get back/To my heart, to the rhythm of my soul/To the rhythm of my unconsciousness/To the rhythm that yearns to be released from control/
Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak.
Shush now.
Restart and reboot yourself./ You're free to go./ Shout for joy if you get the chance/ Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak./ Shush now/ Then don't move or say a thing/
How can you stand next to the truth and not see it?/ A change of heart comes slow./ Is it true that perfect love casts out all fear?/ It's not a hill, it's a mountain/ As you start out the climb./ Do you believe me or are you doubting?/ We're gonna make it all the way to the light/
(You don't know, and you don't get it, do you?/You don't know how beautiful you are.)
I'm gonna fall down/ if I can stand up for your love/ Stand up for hope, faith, love.../ But while I'm getting over certainty/ Stop helping God over the road like a little old lady./
I'm being born, a bleeding start./ The engines roar, blood curling wail/ Head first then foot/ Then heart sets sail.
Once I knew there was a love divine/ Then came a time I thought it knew me not./ Who can forgive forgiveness when forgiveness is not/ Only the lamb as white as snow./ If only a heart could be as white as snow./
Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn/ Every day I have to find the courage/ To walk out into the street/ With arms out/ Got a love you can't defeat./ There's nothing you have that I need./ I can breathe./ Breathe now.
There's nothing you have that I need.
I can breathe now.
I found grace inside a sound.
I found grace, that's all I found
And I can breathe, breathe now.
Return the call home.'
All the lyrics above have been drawn, in order of song, from U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon, which was released this week.
Action/discussion points:
Read 2 Corinthians 9:8 - Do you live gracefully, as if you have all you need?
How might it affect your relationships, if you were to live more fully within that truth/suggestion? Why might you be able to breathe more easily, or open your arms out wider, if you're not looking to see what you can take from others, constantly?
Read Psalm 46, and reflect on what it means to 'Shush Now'.
Read Psalm 139. Why don't you know how beautiful you are?
When might you have been guilty of 'helping God over the road...'? Which great passages of the Bible help to shake us out of the citadel of our certainty and into something more intimate with God and each other? Discuss.
A band like U2 - when they work through music and poetry - have to leave themselves open to interpretation. We cannot always be told what to think about art - sometimes, we must engage with it at our own level. And yet the Bible is full of songs, poetry, story too... How, then, has God left himself open to interpretation?
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