The Fairground - Roots

 

Real brokenness is nothing to fling trite advice and empty chin-up style encouragement at. Silence and understanding are much more helpful. Sometimes we just don't have answers, and offloading ten-cent platitudes is very demeaning to the person in sincere pain.

            Yet there is also a time for truth: there is restoration and healing—though some will actually prefer their brokenness—and there is meaning and purpose in living.

           

Everyone will experience some kind of hurt, but a place of complete brokenness is also often a place where it is easy to be lied to; like one who sets his heart on a family, pours his dreams into it, and then his spouse tires of him and leaves with the children. In that place it is easy to believe the blackest of thoughts, like:

"What's the point of carrying on, I couldn't have given more—what's going to make the next attempt work, why bother? Perhaps I'm just someone whom nobody can love for more than a while before I disappoint them. Maybe I'm just destined to disappoint and fail those who get too close to me. Perhaps I should just think about ending it all, who would care anyway?"

 

Some people'sbrokenness is known to them only, and may not have a noticeable or dramatic origin. A single ant might seem harmless, but being tied down over an ant nest would show that the continual, inescapable gnawing can damage no less than a lion's bite.

 

In the blackest hour when it all seems dark and pointless, bitter—even suicidal-type thoughts can coo invitingly in our ears.

            The heart of this song is to reject these lies, and hold on. The obvious question is, 'Why?'

Because there is a reason to live. Our lives have been ransomed at a cost the universe shudders at. There is nothing that can steal the inheritance or the hope of those who cling to Jesus. This is not a suggestion to hold onto determination, will-power or faith in yourself, that's like trying to climb up yourself to get out of a well, (that would, in effect, be holding onto nothing). This is about discovering Jesus and holding onto him.

 

"Surely you aren't saying that there's only one way, Jesus or nothing?"

Jesus said it himself.* We're just believing him.

 

* John 4.6