He Reigns!

"He Reigns" by Newsboys

It's the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain
It's the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain
The song of Asian believers [Not just Africans, Asians, or South Americans but everyone whether they know it or not (Mosiah 27:31)]
Filled with God's holy fire [The fire of the Joy in our hearts or the fire of shame and anger.  It's a choice.  Now.  Matthew 5:45 "...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."]
It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns [!!]
It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

Let it rise about the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard [!!]
'Cause all the powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word [!!]

When all God's children sing out
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God's people singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

Here's the thing:  He reigns right now.  I have just had to pay attention.  I have had to put down all the empty distractions and really listen.  He's there.  He guides me.  And from what I hear from others, he's guiding them too.

During the Lord's day many of his people expected a military hero in the Messiah who would come and free them from the Physical Bondage of Rome.  They didn't understand that freedom from any kind of Bondage starts within the soul.  Here is a quote I love by President Ezra Taft Benson that explains this concept better than I can:

So he reigns from the inside out.  His Spiritual Second Coming has already started inside every true believer.  Can you feel it (John 14:27; D&C 34:7)?  And it will culminate in his Physical Second Coming.  Don't miss out!

Newsboys

 When I first heard this song it was after spending a long day studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  I was in the car with my kids, running errands or something.  I think I felt the song more than I heard it.  It was so amazingly powerful!  He reigns.  No question about it.

I love the Newsboys for singing this song!  What talent and what a way to use it!  Hats off to them.

In a Big Country

I heard this song on the radio in November of 2008 (I added it to my iPod soon after so I was able to look up the date).  It used to be one of my favorites when I was a teenager in the 80s.  When I heard it this time it took on a whole new meaning to me.  I was going through some major Conflicts in my life, struggling to make things right.  This song seemed to come straight from heaven.  I know when that's true because it's like the song is singing the story my heart needs to hear even when my mind is thinking the only story there is, is the one I've been trying to get through day in and day out.  And of course that's when the lyrics start spinning the story for me.




"In A Big Country" by Big Country

Shock
Come up screamin'
Come up screamin'
Ha

I've never seen you look like this without a reason
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you
[So something was wrong inside of me.  And the seasons were passing by me.  Yet I kept ignoring it thinking I just had to "be the good girl you always have to be.  Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know...well now they know..."  But over time I discovered I had a confused idea of what it meant to be a good girl.  I could feel I needed to learn something about Mercy and this song was giving me a clue as to what that was.]

Shock [Definitely shock. These lyrics expressed the intensity of my feelings.  Kind of an outlet that said it was okay to reveal how I was feeling to Him.  "Come up screamin'!"]

[This song has two perspectives--"you" which is second-person perspective and "I" which is first-person perspective.  This is the way I have found the Lord speaks to me through the Holy Ghost.  He speaks in both second and first perspective when helping me through my issues.  When he uses second-person, he's talking directly to me.  When he uses first-person he's empathizing with me, taking on my voice, my thoughts, my feelings.  So this first line of the second stanza that follows is him taking on my perspective.]

I never took the smile away from anybody's face [So he's basically saying, "You know you never have purposefully taken the smile away from anybody's face.  This isn't how you roll."]
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child
[I needed to understand that I still had a Child side to me.  I needed help.  And I needed to go to Him for help.]

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover's [Love's] voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
[I was beginning to understand that I needed to stop doubting or discounting my heart.  I needed to acknowledge that even though I was doing all that I knew was right, I still felt like this couldn't be happily ever after.  There was more for me to learn.  Psalms 62:8; Mosiah 7:33; D&C 8:2]


I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered
[Yeah, my hope was shattered.  Just hearing Him say that brought be so much peace.  I had been dead set on sacrificing my life even though I couldn't seem to give that sacrifice with Real intent on a day to day, event by event basis.  Sacrifice without hope doesn't seem to work very well.  It seemed dead.  I was forcing myself to do what I knew was right.  I hadn't stopped to think about The Sacrifice that was done for me which needed to become operable in my life in order for me to be able to sacrifice in Balance, with real intent, with Hope, in Love.]

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
[Again, this is that first-second person perspective combination.  I didn't expect to grow flowers in the desert.  I knew life was hard.  Things that mean the most take work!  I was willing to take that.  But shouldn't there be a little more Joy in the Journey?  And I was talking about the core kind of Joy the kind that no Disneyland vacation, big house, or luxury cruise has the power to sustain.  Maybe I was talking about Sustainable Joy.  Where was that?  Why wasn't it incremental?  Would it only come after death?  What did the scriptures say about this? (Alma 32:41-43)]

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover's [Love's] voice fires the mountainside [Love has a voice.  It exists independently.  Certain laws have to be obeyed so that it might flow.  If they are not, then it will be stopped up.  It's the politics of dancing. D&C 130:20-21; D&C 93:8-10, 20, 30]
Stay alive
[I hear this phrase, "Stay alive," repeated a lot in this song.  There are opportunity costs to every sacrifice.  We can sacrifice something Good for something Better.  But we can also mistakenly sacrifice something Best for something Good.  Making those choices, discerning between Good, Better, and Best is a crucial part of our Agency.  And it defines who we are and who's we are (Matthew 10:34-39). So we need to decide what it is that we want to "stay alive" and what it is that we need to let go of in order to come alive. (see the talk "Good, Better, Best" by Dallin H. Oaks]

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
["been discarded"  That's a pretty good description of how I felt.  But He was saying I hadn't been discarded, that He would never discard me (3 Nephi 22:7-9).  I just had to figure out what the story was and what He wanted me to do about it.]
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
[This was key for me.  What did I desire?  What did I want?  He wanted to know.  He wanted me to know.  And I wanted Him to know that I could not, would not consciously do anything against God's will to obtain my Desire.  So I wanted to know how I could obtain that Desire within His boundaries--the Balance that he describes in the scriptures and within my heart? (D&C 82:10).  And this became the crux of my Faith:  "For with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37) and "Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you (Moroni 7:26).  Stories have to be spun.  Certain variables may need to be changed.  But in Mercy balance can be maintained, regained, and strengthened.  And only someone who has that Balance can sacrifice in HIS NAME (Mosiah 3:17).]
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered

Shock, 1, 2 [!!]

[...more repetition of chorus]

There's a Bigger Country than what is right before our Physical eyes and ears.  We can sense its existence within us.  There's another King in charge of that Country.  It contains another brighter and everlasting story for each of us.  And if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will see and hear it.

I love this song by Big Country!  Music with an amazing beat has the capacity to convey great power when partnered with clean lyrics like this song!  I believe that saintly choirs accompanied by organs do not have a monopoly on hymns of praise and songs of the heart.  I love to find songs from all walks of life and from all genres that sing about the True Matters of the Soul.