Thousand Foot Krutch’s 2012 release has been stuck in my car CD player for five years! This concept album takes us on a journey through our faith as Christians. It starts out with a Darth Vader type voice drawing you in with these words “You have activated all systems, deactivation is not an option. If you don’t stand for something, you might fall for anything.” and ends with a similar message to take with you. The title song brings us back to our life apart from God where all our dreams collapse and leave us brokenhearted. The end is sometimes that same place that we find ourselves having tried it a second or third time and falling back in that pit of disappointment and brokenness. Again we run away from the mess that we have made of our lives and then we begin.
Where we begin is recognizing that we are aliens, not of this world but living in it, having been lost, misunderstood. Becoming traitors to our own faulty reasoning and distorted dreams we begin to live as changed people, our broken hearts mending and like angels singing with a million voices we are overcome with the joy that comes from knowing Jesus Christ personally where it all began. If we find ourselves repeating the cycle once again we crawl back to the end of our own rope and again we begin. We begin to live as who we really are, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, royalty. I don’t listen to CD’s much anymore and the only one I listen to in the car is this one. I never get tired of it! If you haven’t engaged with this album, I recommend that you take the journey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvIlytIm9cY
With a passion for Rock and Roll with a purpose-driven message, I've dedicated myself to providing you with all the best news and resources possible for Rock 'n Roll with a Purpose. Rock on!
What you think of when you think of giants? Huge, frightening, bullylike, loud, obnoxious, arrogant, paralyzing, these are some words that I think of. Of course, the biblical Goliath comes to mind and David’s encounter with him. On the other hand, there is “standing on the shoulders of giants”. These are pillars of the faith like Mose, Abraham, the apostle Paul, C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Tozer, and so many others that have had a huge impact for Christ. We admire their courage and strong faith. The song Running with Giants by Thousand Foot Krutch brings lots of thoughts to mind.
In a Loudwire exclusive, Frontman Trevor McNevan says of the single, “This song is about faith & trust, and staring our fears right in the face and saying, ‘No more. You have no shelter here.’” I like that! FDR said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. There are dangers in this life that should be avoided and can cause problems. We do have to be wise with our risk-taking and adventures and not engage in foolish, destructive behavior. We have to remember the perils that are out there, but God has us here for a reason. As believers, I highly doubt that he wants us to play it safe. There is a whole world out there that needs to know the love of Christ and they are not always welcoming.
“Running with giants everywhere I go, It’s an unspoken alliance so I can just let go.”
When we band together to accomplish our mission for Christ, in prayer, in power, and in love, we are mighty. No bullying giant can stop us whether internal (fear, emotions, pain, depression, etc) or external (Christ haters, government, etc) With the apostle Paul as our example, it is clear that we can railroad through every obstacle if we are moving in the will of God until the day he takes us home. Will we trip over stray debris on the journey? Yes. Will we hit road blocks that seem immovable? Yes. Will we feel like God has left us at times? Probably. Can we lift each other up when we hit those valleys? YES!
Let’s do this! Let’s make Jesus famous no matter what the cost. The world should know what an awesome, amazing, out of this world, loving, merciful Savior he is. If we don’t tell them, who will? Romans 10:4 in the Bible says, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” There it is. This is our call to action.
So when the giants in your life have got you in a stronghold, remember TFK’s song, Running with Giants. We can stand on the shoulders of the good giants, pillars of the faith that have gone before us and made their mark on the world for Christ.
“And I feel the pressure of ten men
When the floor cracks and the walls start moving in
I feel the strength that’s from within
Kickin’ down the doors and walls
We’re coming in”
Ask your friends to pray, support you and lift you up while you’re weak. That’s why it’s so important for the church to bind together. We are strong when we come together and we can kick those doors and walls right out of the way. We are giant for Christ when we let him work through us. Are you with me?
With a passion for Rock and Roll with a purpose-driven message, I've dedicated myself to providing you with all the best news and resources possible for Rock 'n Roll with a Purpose. Rock on!
Walls have been used throughout history to provide protection, divide countries, lock away prisoners and isolate captives. President Trump is moving to build a 40-foot-tall, 7-foot-deep, 10-inch-thick, and 1,000-mile-long wall border wall with Mexico to stop illegal immigration. The thoughts and opinions surrounding this order abound but we won’t get into that. I remember how exciting it was when the 11.81 foot Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1989 and my mom’s cousins and families were able to cross over into West Germany freely. The fact is that walls have an impact on people one way or another. While we’re on the topic of walls, let’s look at a few songs that mention walls that we can build in our lives and how they can affect us.
The Maze – Light 45 – debut EP, Decibels
Light 45’s intriguing video starts off with Justin looking at a brick that says unfaithful, which he adds to a stacked number of other bricks, each naming some vices, such as thief, liar and maybe some lies the enemy throws in, such as idiot. The scene flashes to Mark, who stands strumming his bass in a hallway surrounded by walls of brick, confining his space. The scene keeps returning to the three band members playing the song out in a desert like setting then flashing back to the wall. The video begins to show Justin in distress, beginning to feel like this is his lot in life, to reap the ruin of the wall of sin that he has built.
As each brick revealed the lies and the sins that I had fused
And as each brick I laid, I raised the thought that this is what life has for me
And that is what I got
That crushing reality that we have really screwed things up can bury us unless we look up to the Son, which Justin does and it turns things around. Jesus paid the price so we don’t have to carry the unbearable burden of our sin. We have to admit it, call it what it is, not explain it away or chalk it up to “no one’s perfect”. All we have to do is lay it down at the cross of Christ where he paid for it all and we are free. Yes, FREE!
Then the Son got hot, yeah.
For the first time I lifted up my eyes, and as my hands, they had followed suit, then to my surprise the sun had
Made this maze burn away and in these endless days (this endless daze) I’ll sing to my Creator
That is what I got.
What do we get when we turn our sins over to Christ? We get freedom from our crushing guilt. We get the assurance that all is well with our soul even if it isn’t so great in our circumstances at the moment. We get to look forward to living eternally with our Creator in a place that He is preparing for us. We get to experience his limitless love for us. We get all this and so much more. God, bring down the wall of sin in our lives.
Fly On The Wall – Thousand Foot Krutch – The End Is Where We Begin
This is a unique song for the band, creating a dreamlike image in your mind that builds into a description of escaping our addictions. Trevor, in an interview with New Release Today, explains “This song is about someone speaking to their addictions and written from the point of view of me describing it in a dream.” Addictions build so many walls in our lives, between those we care about and ourselves, between our goals and dreams and being able to work toward them and between God and our relationship with him.
We weren’t divided
We were the same
And we were free
But we all wore chains
We couldn’t see it
But we created
A place between truth and overrated
The crazy thing is the walls that we build, the chains that we wear are often self-imposed and can be removed. With the power we have as God’s royal family members, we are not slaves to anyone or anything. We can be free. When life throws us for a loop and we are faced with deep pain or intense fears, we may escape to alcohol, drugs, food binges, unhealthy relationships or other addictions. We may use those to isolate ourselves from God and others because we don’t want to deal with it. Before we know it, the world has grown completely dark, depression sets in and we rely on our addictions to stop feeling at all. This is a sad place to be.
We had a plan to build a wall
A great divide that would never fall
To separate us
From all the pain
And keep our skeletons locked away
And brick by brick
We built it so thick
That it blacked out the sky and all the sunlight
And one by one
We all became numb
We were making the bullets to a broken gun
OK so you know the scripture, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) If we will recognize his schemes to destroy our lives we can begin to sever the addictions from our lives. We may need human intervention to help us through it but we have God’s kingdom power to overcome. We don’t need it anymore, whatever addiction it is that is ruining our lives. With allusions to what it means to be part of God’s kingdom and the power contained in that privilege, the song builds into a point of victory over addiction and freedom.
I’m on the run from a thief
I let into my head
I know, I hold the keys, so don’t be scared
When I turn and shout:
I don’t think I need you anymore
Take your words, and your lies and just beat it!
I don’t think I need you anymore
Take the hurt and the pain, I don’t need it
We have the power as God’s kings and queens to overcome and celebrate recovery. Jesus told us that we do. Is it harder for God to help us with our addictions than it is to move a mountain? (Matthew 17:20) I don’t think so. Anyway, God can do absolutely anything and although he many not want us to ask him to move Mount Everest, we know he wants us to be free from addiction.
I wanna live, I wanna be the change
We can all be kings and queens
If we can just learn to believe
The band works with an addictions ministry called Your Life Counts. http://www.yourlifecounts.org
Walls – Manic Drive – Blue
Unity is what God wanted for his people. Jesus said “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one–as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:21) It seems like unity is hard to come by these days. Our country is split in its ideas of how our country should run, churches have problems with unity both with other churches and within their own walls. Families struggle to get along. It seems unity is against our nature.
We are one but we’re not the same
For a thousand years we’ve played this game
And the tension rises up
Ya the passion’s given up
So our God reaches to unite
While amongst ourselves we fight
And I’m sick of wasting time
Ya I got something on my mind
Tearing down the walls that divide us takes prayer, sacrifice, and action on each of our part. It is never easy and may leave us feeling vulnerable. In Christ, however, unity is possible. He prayed for his spiritual family to have it. If Jesus prayed for us to be unified than unity should be something we strive for, shouldn’t it? We should be the role model for the world in our love for one another and our unity. In these times of heated debate about a wall going up, let’s work on the walls among us as believers coming down so we can be the hands and feet of Jesus, a mighty army, unified to be a light in this dark world.
Cause there’s something going down
Ya these walls are coming down
Cause the truth that has been said
Will unite us once again
Cause there’s something going down
Ya these walls are coming down
With a passion for Rock and Roll with a purpose-driven message, I've dedicated myself to providing you with all the best news and resources possible for Rock 'n Roll with a Purpose. Rock on!
