"Suffer" Explanation

Just a couple of days ago we released a new song, "Suffer". It was originally written as a potential sixth track for our most recent EP, but it was still unfinished when it came time to submit the release for distribution. I've been writing a lot more music since that EP, and decided to revisit this one and see if I couldn't work out something better for the vocals than what I'd been able to come up with previously. Sometimes lyrics and vocal parts come to me almost immediately, and sometimes I rewrite and retrack for months before I can do something I really feel good about. I'm pretty pleased with the final product on this one, and I hope our listeners feel the same way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the theme of the song is suffering. If I'm being honest, I was dealing with what felt like an unbearable amount of internal suffering at the time I started writing this one, and it was originally my intent to write a song that was really just me venting and expressing my anger at where my life was/is (read: whining). Before I had time to complete the song, I was able to get a little more reasonable grasp on those feelings, particularly in the context of the suffering of so many others, including that of the King to whom I owe my life to begin with. Obviously the severity of someone else's suffering doesn't negate the reality of our own, but reorienting my thoughts in relation to realities outside of myself definitely helps me achieve a more accurate and grateful perspective. I decided to keep the honesty and vulnerability about my own suffering, but to also present it in comparison to that of so many who've lived before me, and eventually to Christ's. I wrote it as a reminder to myself and to anyone who listens that the promises we have in Him are far better than an easy or comfortable few years in this world. My suffering doesn't constitute any failure on God's part to keep His word. In fact, suffering is pretty much a promise itself if we choose to obey God. We should seek to be willing to suffer if and when the time comes. Is this life?

Given all I have just to waste away on the inside?

To watch these hopes and dreams shattered one by one?

I feel so discouraged sometimes, and for many reasons. Among them is what I often see as a failure to bring this band to a place of any significant success. Even that really depends on a very one-dimensional concept of what constitutes "success". Certainly I don't have to be rich or famous for this music to touch people or encourage someone. But at the same time, sometimes I feel extremely underwhelmed with what I have to show for the years I've poured my heart into these songs. There are also many ways outside of my musical endeavors where my life is very far from what I would have envisioned or hoped it would be. It sucks feeling like you're spending the vast majority of your life just making sure you can stay alive, and I know I'm not alone in that sentiment.

It's not that the light's so hard to see

It's that the dark is a part of me

I think this is a somewhat artistic and interesting way of wording it, but it's very accurate. There is so much to be grateful for in my own life, and even in the moments where I feel overwhelmed with frustration or sadness I am intellectually conscious of that truth. It's like having an excellent day and choosing to perpetually focus on a single, tiny moment where something went wrong. I acknowledge these things, and I truly believe them, but I repeatedly find myself ungrateful and unhappy and angry with the way some things in my own life are.

I choke back this bitterness and pray my will be done

And every time it falls apart

I count it betrayal

So many of my prayers are about what I want. Not necessarily objects, but aspects of my life that I want to be a certain way or perceived problems I have that I want to be solved. And I'm not condemning asking God for what we desire. But my trust in Him should not depend on Him giving me everything I think I want in life. I think everyone can think of something we once wanted that we're now thankful we never got. When I place all my hope in God doing everything I want Him to, Him not doing what I want Him to feels like betrayal.

The promise was never broken

We've conceived another

It is so easy to set our hearts on the false gospel of prosperity and comfort. Contrary to what I might like to believe, God has not promised me an easy life, or one free of suffering. God has not promised me financial security, a successful music career, a healthy body, or even my next breath.

Slaughtered, burned alive

Hung upside down, crucified

Unwavering to a bitter end

So many who've come before us, even the disciples who literally walked with Jesus, lived lives that absolutely annihilate any reasonable expectation I might have of comfort and ease on the basis of my faith in Christ. So many were brutally tortured and maimed and murdered for their allegiance to Him. If the "gospel" that permeates our society is to be believed, these men must have not believed enough? Or, if not that, even worse: God must have failed them? No. These men and women were conquerors and victorious and blessed in a way that nothing we could ever gain in this world can compare to. They knew nothing in this life could hold a candle to what they were promised. Suffering was not a betrayal or an obstacle, but was in fact the path to the promise.

I swore the same

But now with every broken heart

I count it betrayal

My suffering pales against the backdrop of men and women being impaled and burned and torn from their families. Me being disappointed about my metal band not having a bunch of followers sounds absolute stupid when that's juxtaposed with the countless people who've given up their very lives for the Gospel. I've spoken of my desire to serve Christ no matter the cost, and then so often turn around and pout when my life isn't exactly like I would like for it to be.

Burn it down, tear it open

Pray for the will to . . . This is a call to dismantle this false gospel in our culture and in our own hearts; to seek God's will and the coming of the Kingdom above our own comfort.

Not from some carnal deprivation

Not from the poverty we scorn

From hell itself His blood has ransomed me

When Jesus wore that twisted crown of thorns

Jesus chose suffering. And it wasn't to save me from being poor or uncool or having to work for a living. It was to save me from death and hell. It was so that I could be made alive. I am healed and forgiven because of the blood He willingly shed for me, and I have been given a promise that is unshakeable and better than every earthly hope and dream I could ever have. God never has and never will fail me. His promises are true and His plans will come to pass.

Pray for the will to suffer Let us pray for a willingness to suffer for the Kingdom and for the world Jesus came to save.