Music is a powerful vehicle that employs a unique technique in engaging people and projecting the songwriter’s philosophy of life to others. In a new series of post entitled “Life By” I would like to reflect on some of my favorite musician’s lyrics in hopes to see the world through their eyes.
The Great Search
In my opinion, Dave Matthews is a musical genius. (You don’t have you agree!) I find his music attractive because many of the lyrics he writes carry a sharp sense of reality. In the song Jimi Thing from the album Under the Table Dreaming he writes:
Lately I’ve been feeling low
A remedy is what I’m seeking
I take a taste of what’s below
Come away to something better
What I want is what I’ve not got
And what I need is all around me
Reaching, searching, never stop
And I’ll say…
If you could keep me floating just for a while
‘Til I get to the end of this tunnel
If you could keep me floating just for a while
I’ll get back to you
In these words he narrates his longing to be fulfilled. Dave sings that he constantly wants what he does not have and he is continually searching for what will satisfy. As the band plays into the chorus we find the great lyricist looking to what will keep him floating to the next high, or next temporal thrill. The image we formulate is of a man who seeks for contentment but never finds it. Like a child who only eats chocolate and never partakes of any wholesome sustenance, we find a man who is malnourished and sick from being entertained by the transient pleasures of the world. (2 Cor. 4:18) The sobering realization that Dave presents to us is that, along with him, we also often find ourselves in the great search for contentment. To our eternal souls, the hunt for mundane and unsavory worldly thrills leaves us exhausted and decidedly disappointed.
Finding Answers
How then do we appease the deep-rooted desire for lasting delight? The answer we seek lies within the depths of the Gospel. The contentment we seek is from God and found in Him, but because of sin we are bent to solicit it elsewhere. The Gospel is the medicine to our disease. In the Gospel we find that true, lasting satisfaction is found in the man Jesus Christ. Where He dies in our place, for our sin, so that we no longer receive death as the just penalty for our sins, but instead experience new, abundant life with the hope of a heavenly citizenship. What we find at the cross is our great God and Savior making possible eternal life to be enjoyed in the all-satisfying presence of Him. The Gospel takes away our need for satisfaction found in temporal pleasures that quickly dissipate, and redirects our eyes to the eternal, life-fulfilling hope of the glory of heaven, to the glory of Christ!
You would