A Holy Roar

Although I should have been attempting to go to sleep tonight, I found myself searching through the iheart website (listed in my links), and came across a post about a photo gallery to which some of the iheart staff went. I followed this link from their website.

Some of the images should be viewed with discretion as human life, death, pain, struggle, etc. is depicted in its rawest sense.

Some lyrics echoed in my mind as I sifted through some of the harder photos (all are shockingly (ha) Hillsong songs – Tear Down The Walls, Hosanna, With Everything)…

“Tear down the walls, see the world.  Is there something we have missed?  Turn from ourselves, look beyond, there is so much more than this.”

“…Show me how to love like You have loved me.  Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause…”

“Open our eyes to see the things that make Your heart cry, to be the church that You would desire, a light to be seen.  Break down our pride and all the walls we’ve built up inside, our earthly crowns and all our desires, we lay at Your feet.  Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light, and every eye will see…”

One of the reasons I love the song ‘With Everything’ so much is also because at the end, after you shout ‘With everything we will shout forth Your glory – with everything we will shout forth Your praise” – everyone joins in one voice to belt the ‘woahs.’ When we were at the Hillsong conference, they opened and closed with this song (you can watch the opening portion here) – the final night, I finally realized why I love this song so much, especially that part – it sounds like a battle cry – every one of us in that arena had a different story, from all over the world, with different struggles, pains, passions, hopes – however, we were unified in the call to worship Him with everything – which causes us to stand for love and justice – which says we are willing to open our eyes and see the hurting world and do something about it.  There is a song by Watermark called “Holy Roar” which I love – but I started thinking about that concept – that is what those ‘woahs’ signify to me – a Holy Roar – people rising up, and declaring that something must change – that Holy Roar is in that declaration through song, and I believe God hears that Holy Roar when we “turn from ourselves, look beyond” and declare Him “with everything” as we love as He called and bring forth justice – to the orphans, the poor, the forgotten, the widows…to “love Him in His distressing disguise” (Mother Teresa)

Oh God, may I never be so selfish about what is going on in ‘my own world,’ that I forget what is going on in THE world – may some of these images leave me shaken and spur a deep desire to be a change in some way, in any way – to begin today – to no longer live a passive, unaffected life – to no longer continue to complain about my selfish desires and wants when so many across our globe are not afforded the luxury and are barely receiving basic needs. May we finally get what it means to love – to love like You – to love as You intended the church to – to no longer turn a blind eye and deaf ear to those hurting around us. Oh God, call forth a generation of change – that we would finally ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’ (Gandhi). Oh God, breathe your vision into us and Your strength to do it.  May a Holy Roar sweep over us