I try not to use clichés. I blame it on Mr. Sullivan my 12th Grade Shakespeare teacher. We had weekly writing assignments, which we handed in each week and in my desperate attempt to be poetic I would regularly use a cliché, because it just sounded right. My papers would come back with the same thing written in the column-“Please do not use clichés.”
It’s the unoriginality of it; they are sell-outs of truth that prevent us from using the brains God has gifted us with. The definition of cliché is: an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, "played out." Unfortunately this can happen all the time in our spiritual lives.
There was a song written 7 years ago by John Mark McMillan called How He Loves. Most people know this song because the David Crowder Band recently covered it. It is an incredible testimony of God’s unwavering and overwhelming love for us. I have heard both versions and even performed it myself with our music team. I appreciate both versions written by two artists and two styles. There is also one subtle difference within the two version, one lyric has been altered.
In McMillan’s original he writes:
“And heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss…”
In Crowder’s cover he writes:
“And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss…”
This lyric is talking about the way in which the divine God meets the imperfect human and engages in a relationship that seeks to make man more in the image of the divine. I will admit when I first heard McMillan’s lyric I was taken aback. I was at a conference and the music team was leading us in this song (pre-Crowder) and when I got to this lyric I said to myself, “Did that really just say what I think it said?”
When Crowder’s version came out I was relieved to hear they had changed the lyric to something a little easier to swallow.
Recently I have thought differently. My different thinking comes from a deeper appreciation of McMillan and the message he is trying to send. The message is rawness before God and about our relationship with God.
As I was talking with my good friend Jeremy we began talking about this particular lyric. An “unforeseen kiss” is nice. It is a sweet little surprise that might make us smile, it may even contain some passion but it is not mind blowing, is it?
But this other lyric is raw. It emits a raw passion that is unmistakable, undeniably, and beautifully confrontational with the receiver!
This is what we need to be pursuing with God; A rawness which makes us rediscover the reckless love God has for us and to express it to him in new ways. You see, God is not afraid to hear of all the terrible things we have done, to take those burdens on himself so he can give us life.
We have gotten so used to proper language with a God created the passion, which lives inside of us. Why shouldn’t we bite down and honestly express everything our heart needs to say to God instead of neatly packaging it into a little prayer we say before bed, meal, whatever.
Our journey with Christ should never become a cliché, where we lean on pithy sayings instead of the raw truth God reveals in our hearts through the salvation we receive through Jesus.
So be more raw, and know deeper passion.
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