Casting Crowns

Talk about sobering and convicting. Though thoroughly enjoyable, not exactly a feel good concert. Don’t get me wrong. This was an awesome concert. I loved it all.(Well except the little sermonette which I felt was a little over the top - the music could certainly stand on its own, the words of Mark Hall need no supplemental explanations....) The energy, the passion, the speakers being 15 feet from my ears – tho I have to sing in exactly 3 hours and I still can’t hear out of my left ear. No, this concert was a reminder to all of us that we are broken people, and hurting and sinful just like everyone else. We are not better in our “Christian-ness”, not an exclusive club that only people with perfect lives can join. It was a reminder to reach out to those who are different, who are thought “not good enough” by not only our world, but also our churches. A reminder to embrace the hurting, comfort those in their suffering, and befriend the lonely. Not only that, it was a reminder that in our attempt to be holy we often play a game – plastic and pasteboard. Where we pretend we are above mistakes and hurts and needs like probably whoever we sit next to on Sunday morning who is also neatly packaged and disguised. Casting Crowns sang about loneliness, judgmental people, the messiness of life, the storms we endure. They sang about pain, and brokenness. About missing the point. About loving like Jesus, and compassion for all people, and for unity in the body of Christ. About being afraid, about not being good enough. About the subtle voice of Satan mocking us and persuading us that we are inept and incapable. About how we all fall victim to the concept of the American dream until there’s no time left for family or God. About a nation blind to the Lord, as Bethlehem was so many years ago. About the Voice of Truth, the power of prayer, praising God, lifting our hands and hearts and dancing. And above all being true to our God and being able at the end of the day to say:

Let my Lifesong sing to you – I want to sign your name to the end of this day knowing that my heart was true – let my lifesong sing to you.

I came home with a new desire to reach out to people, to truly Love Them like Jesus – no matter who they are or what the circumstance. Even after sleeping I still feel the weight of the task. I was uplifted; I was encouraged. My heart was touched deeply and convicted. I truly can’t find the words to express what I am really feeling in my soul today, other than that I need to be reaching out, embracing, encouraging, sharing, going – so My Life and it’s song are truly reflections of the God I love, of Jesus who sacrificed his life for the whole creation to reconcile every last bit of it to God. Why should I do any less?