A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a song on K-Love that I'd heard countless times before but never really listened to the words. You know, one of those songs that you listen to and can even sing, and then one day you think, "Wow, didn't realize that's what I was singing! Ha!" It's a David Crowder Band song, How He Loves, but it was written by someone else. One of the lines in the song says:
He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When I listened to the lyrics, I was wowed. What an awesome illustration! His love is so powerful, it's like a hurricane, and I'm a tree stuck in the middle of all of that love! Wow! Us Mississippi folk remember Hurricane Katrina. Yes, Mississippi was a direct hit, not New Orleans. The problems in the crescent city were not from the direct force of the eye, but that's a different story. Anyway, Chandler and I lived in Henderson, Tennessee at the time, but he was working out of town and we decided to meet up at his parents' house in West Point. Great idea, Jamie, let's go CLOSER to the storm instead of farther away! We watched a huge tree in front of their house literally split down the middle throughout the course of the long (and at times scary) night. The force of the wind was so strong that it weighed down this huge tree that had been standing for who knows how long. Think about that wind as love that someone feels for you. Wow!
Not thinking of any other meaning to the words, I googled the lyrics to the song so I could post about how awesome I thought it was, and to my amazement, I stumbled upon a blog discussing the words. This lady, a Christian, told about how she hated this song because it was a terrible worship song because of how terrible it made God sound. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but this was the overall gist.) She didn't think that God should be described as a hurricane because that is a sign of destruction, despair, hurt, death, and the trees in the paths of hurricanes? Well, they were twisted and snapped and stripped of their leaves if left standing at all. Wow, again! Hadn't thought about that! She goes on to discuss the other facets of the song that disturb her. I can see her point. But then I read a comment someone posted in response that basically said that he views the metaphor differently. Tornados in the midst of hurricanes are the real culprits behind the twisted trees, trees that aren't deeply rooted and are weak may snap from the force of the wind. Most trees, though, bend beneath the weight of the wind. They are often times forever bent, or changed, by the wind from the hurricane. He said that God "bends" us, molds us to who he wants us to be. Wow! I can totally see what he's saying!
My take on all of it:
Like it, love it, or hate it, the point is that God is God, no matter who we think He is or who we think He should be. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament and is the same God of today. We can sit around and imagine our God as a sweet, kind, loving, giving God (and He is ALL of those AND MORE), but we need to remind ourselves that we should still fear Him because He is our friend, our father, but He is also the MOST HOLY ruler of EVERYTHING who is ultimately seeking His glory, not ours. I thank Him everyday that He was gracious enough to love me and care about me soooooo much that He bends me with love like a hurricane. Wow! Who am I? NOBODY compared to Him. Yet He still loves me more than any other being I will ever encounter EVER. Nothing offensive about that to me. If loving like a hurricane offends you, how would you possibly be able to grapple with the fact that God would willingly kill His son, a part of Himself, in such a cruel and tortuous way. THAT'S how much He loves you. Wow!
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 2 Cor. 4:7-11
LOVE it! So, go love like a hurricane, if you can. :)
We have actually been singing that one in WORSHIP on Sunday mornings. I think it's a great song. I see both points tho. But it doesn't matter, as long as you know where you stand with God and you truly worship, no matter the song!
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