Jericho

“Sometimes it hurts us more than dying/ To give up what we thought we knew.”

That’s one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands. The band is Unsearchable Riches and the song is “Jericho.” (You can find it in iTunes.) It’s a powerful song, lyrically and musically, about what happens when our fortresses collapse. It points out that sometimes the things that give us a sense of security are really the things that hold us in bondage.

The song has really resonated with me for several years, but more so the past few months. When I look back at my last blog post (before yesterday’s), it’s startling to realize how much has changed since then. Some things still don’t seem real… and change never seems to rest. Walking in a new reality often seems more like a dream than the real world, as though I could wake up any moment and I’d think, “Ah, of course it was just a dream.”

And yet it was God who shook Jericho’s foundations. The walls crumbled and fell at His bidding.

I have defined the place that I exist
In terms of everything that I resist
These city walls let nothing harmful through
They are my fortress and a prison too
It’s like the very thing that’s killing me
Is somehow my security

‘Cause I just don’t know where to go
If I lose Jericho
But I can feel it crumbling in the wind
Jesus come and free my soul
Overthrow Jericho
I don’t want to see these walls again

There is no beauty here inside this place
There is no freedom where there is no grace
Inside these walls my heart cannot pursue
The all-consuming well You call me to
Sometimes it hurts us more than dying
To give up what we thought we knew

‘Cause I just don’t know where to go
If I lose Jericho
But I can feel it crumbling in the wind
Jesus come and free my soul
Overthrow Jericho
I don’t want to see these walls again

Oh Jesus, come and free my soul
Overthrow Jericho
I don’t want to see these walls again
I don’t want to see these walls again
I don’t want to see these walls again…