The Struggle

Last night my wife and I spent the evening with Tenth Avenue North (courtesy of some complimentary tickets from our friends over @ WRBS 95.1). Although we truly enjoy their music, we are not sure that we have it in us to travel two hours in traffic and stay out late for concerts anymore. Our age and my writer’s schedule of waking up at 5:30 on my “day off” and Jennifer’s runner’s routine of running a 5K before breakfast began to show when the crowd was calling Tenth Avenue North back on stage for an encore and we were both thinking how each song pushed our bedtime closer to midnight.

But it still all about perspective. Jennifer and I had a wonderful night out together, enjoying a free concert, with free child care back home, and nearly four hours of time to talk before and after the concert. Mike Donehey (lead singer for Tenth Avenue North) is no stranger to area traffic having grown up in Northern Virginia himself; he is also no stranger to the importance of perspective.

Prior to singing one of their most popular songs and the title track for their 2012 album “The Struggle”, Mike shared some of the lyrics for the song. “We are free to struggle…We’re not struggling to be free. Your blood bought and makes us children…So children drop your chains and sing.”

He’s right. Christ has set us free, and who the Son has set free is free indeed (John 8:36). Earlier in the evening, Kevin Burgess (better known as KB) reminded us that, as Christians, “We do not fight for the victory, [but] we fight from the victory.”

Oftentimes we need to expand or correct our perspective in order to see things as they truly are, and as victorious Christians things are often far better than our perceptions may have us to believe…even in The Struggle.