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A New Song: Strong Enough by Matthew West

Friday, September 30, 2011

In light of the fact that many of you are starting exams this week/soon/already started, today's song is another song on strength:

LYRICS

Out of the many songs about God's strength, I love this song for its brutal honesty in the first verse:

You must, You must think I’m strong
To give me what I’m going through
Well forgive me, forgive me if I’m wrong
But this looks like more than I can do
On my own

When I first heard this verse, I was like "Huh?" Wait, wasn't this song supposed to be about God's strength being more than enough for us or something? What does this verse have to do with it? And then as the song continues, I realised what it really meant. Many times when we ask God for strength, when we pray and read all the strength-related verses, our cries lack surrender; and that's what this song is about also.

This first verse, in all its brutal honesty, tells God: "You must be over-estimating me, to put me in a situation that I can't get out of." In a video about this song, the songwriter Matthew West said that this was referring to the popular mantra that God won't put you through something that you can't handle. But sometimes, we think that's rubbish; things can get so overwhelming that we think God must be kidding - or even toying - with us. You've studied so hard for your Chemistry test but yet you've failed it - again and again and again. The classmate who hates you for some reason continues to make life difficult for you - over and over again. That particular sinful habit you've been trying to get rid of - keeps coming back, no matter how hard you try to control yourself. And we get angry and fed up with God, because it seems that He's not solving our problems anytime soon.

Even so, when there's a problem in life, we almost always turn to God. We ask, "Lord I pray for strength to overcome this, please give me strength!" But when we ask this, do we ask Him with complete acknowledgement of our strengthlessness so that His strength is shown all the more? As the song goes on to say,

I know I’m not strong enough to be
Everything that I’m supposed to be
I give up, I’m not strong enough
Hands of mercy won’t You cover me?
Lord, right now I’m asking You to be
Strong enough, strong enough
For the both of us

Do we ask God for strength while still holding on to some sliver of our own strength, trying to maintain some control on a situation that's out of hand? Or do we give it all up to God, knowing that we are not strong enough? God wants us to ask Him for strength so that we can recognize our own strengthlessness in the process, so that we can see His power & glory and know for sure that He is the God who gives us strength - strength to do the things we feel we cannot do.

‘Cause I’m broken
Down to nothing
But I’m still holding on to the one thing
You are God
And You are strong when I am weak
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength
And I don’t have to be strong enough

Matthew West said, "That's the secret of life: It's knowing that all things are possible, but not on our own strength. It's through Christ who gives us strength." So we don't have to be strong enough. When we are on the verge of giving up, we don't have to try and hold on to our own strength, because we don't have to do it alone. All it takes is our complete surrender to God to give us strength, instead of depending on our own. As Proverbs 3:5 (MSG) says,

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.

During this exam period (and every other difficult time in your life), in what way will you ask God for strength? Crying to Him while deep inside you're still holding on to something, or with complete surrender to say "I'm not strong enough, but God You are"?

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If you have the time, check out the video I was referring to about the story behind this song:

Labels: A New Song, strength

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