This week’s Music Monday selection is my all time favorite song from one of my all time favorite groups (we miss you ‘Tones):
Wilderness by O.C. Supertones.
If asked what song would best describe me, this would be it. Usually, I bold the lyrics in these posts that connect with me the most, but in this case, it winds up being almost the entire song. This song speaks about the part of me who is very analytical and logical, who thinks too much and tries to find a reason for everything – and all too often fails. I think, wrongly, that if I do A, then B will happen. If I step out of my comfort zone and do this, then I will get that. If I do the “right” thing, then he’ll reward me with what I want. It doesn’t work that way, not in the least. “I spend my life on looking up the answer,” but who can truly understand and find a reason for “children without mothers” or any of the other pain and suffering found in this world? It’s very frustrating for me, the list and goal oriented individual, who feels so lost without a plan or agenda or direction, who needs to find the reason for things. Often, I wonder “what should I hold to and what should I do, how do I know if anything’s true?”
The song is especially relevant to where I am today, in a state of confusion and hurt and not understanding and very much struggling with and working through the “problem of pain,” to use C.S. Lewis’ terminology. Someone commented to me recently that I’m in the desert – or as the song says “somewhere in between Canaan and Egypt, a place called the wilderness.” This is not something I necessarily wanted to hear or admit to myself, but upon further reflection, I can’t really deny it and instead need to embrace where I am, look for “a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19-20)
The end of the song, which should be the uplifting resolution, is not satisfying to me in the least. It touches on the part of the scriptures that I have the hardest time accepting, Jesus’ temptation by the devil in Matthew 4:1-11. More on that later.
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The rain falls on the righteous and the wicked
Mine is not to reason why this is
In this I rest in this I find my refuge
That my thoughts and ways are not His
I spend my life on looking up the answers
It’s rare that I can’t find a reason why
But reasons fail at children without mothers
His plan is more than I can know
Have you ever held in doubt
What this life is all about
Have you questioned all these things
that seem important to us
Do you really wanna know
Or are you a little scared
You’re afraid that God is not really
exactly what you’d have Him be
What should I hold to and what should I do
How do I know if anything’s true
I’m somewhere in-between Canaan and Egypt
A place called the wilderness
I’m not one who always trusts their feelings
I don’t believe in what you’d call blind faith
But faith that you can do all that you promised
And you said it all works for good
It’s safe to say I don’t see the big picture
I can’t see the forest for the trees
And if five hundred lives
Were mine to get to know
You all could be spent on just this
God do you really understand what it’s like to be a man
Have You ever felt the weight of
loving all the things you Hate
Have You struggled have you worried
How can You sympathize
I have spoken too soon put my hand over my mouth
I can’t contend with You
Your ways are so much higher
And we pass through the fire that
Christ endured before us
When You were in the wilderness
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Still remember you emailing me about Car-Part's website.
never flown?! that blows me away! typo in the 'caliper'. 
