[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ajIFfSaEzE]

Simply put, I adore this song.

Leeland and Brandon Heath’s lyrics describe the heartbeat of what I hope my life is, the impact I desire to have.

I want to follow Him.  I want to reach out and help people encounter Jesus, not the hokey-made-up-religious Jesus, but the life-altering, heart-holding, walks-with-me-talks-with-me, compassionate feels-our-hurts Man who saved my life.  And yours (even if you don’t know it yet).

Jesus has saved me from unspeakable pain.  He’s rescued me from deep darkness, from a pit of despair it took a decade to climb out of.  Just this past year I’m seeing bursts of light everywhere!  How could I have missed this?  The world is full-color, after all, a truth I once relied on others to paint for me.  I was unaware of life’s beauty then.  My reality differed.

But all that’s changed.

This is no Interwebs pity party, mind you, so please don’t break out the tissues.  This is a CELEBRATION!  Of all He’s done for me.  Of all He’s done and doing for you!  This song encapsulates that — it captures my heart in a beautiful melody.

My old music faves depress me now.  They used to be my mantras, for years.  My how God’s moved and changed and healed my heart!

He continues to more each day.  He brightens my life.  I never have to go back to that pit!  He’s shown me freedom, what tangled me up in the dark, and how to show others the way out.

And that’s the message of this song.

Once you’re free, you never wanna revisit old places.  Leave them dead and buried.  You have new horizons to explore!  You have PEOPLE to reach with His hope.

If someone saved your life, all you’d wanna do is tell others what they did.  Spread their love and share your gratitude!

And if they risked their life for you, you would likely be so stunned, so grateful, you would want to serve them somehow.  Give them something, anything, to “pay them” what you really can’t return.

But what if Someone didn’t risk their life for you.  They GAVE it.  They died so you would spring to life.  What would you do then?  And what if they died for your friends too?  Your neighbors?

I imagine you’d tell others about this person who died in your place, and theirs.  Everywhere.  As much and as often as you can.  Who does that, after all?  Who dies so that someone else may live?

We all know… Jesus did.

At times when I lose this “Gospel saving” perspective, I have only to turn on this song and sing the words.  They remind me of my heart’s true desire, where I’ve lost focus in my life.  They re-orient me to my life’s mission.

I want to follow Him …… into the world, into broken people’s homes.  But I want to leave there ……. with chains dangling from my hands, the chains of people once in bondage.  People who can know the freedom I, too, now know.

Don’t you?

Thank You loving Father for rescuing me.  Where would I be without Your grace?  Make this song my life.  I want to help bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the year of Jubilee to those who are bound.  Help me, Father.  Enable me to be like You, Jesus.  Empower me Holy Spirit.  In Jesus’ precious name I pray, amen.