Breathe Today

You can only move as fast as who's in front of you
And if you assume, just like them, what good will it do?
So find out for yourself, so your ignorance will stop bleeding through
You can breathe today

So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
You're suffocating
Logic forces me to believe in this and I have learned to see
And I can only say what I've seen and heard and only you can choose
And every choice you make will affect you, search your own self
You can breathe today
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
You're suffocating
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
You're suffocating
BREATHE
Big enough to fill the void that inside of you
It's just a breath away
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
You're suffocating
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
BREATHE
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
BREATHE
The empty shape in you
Breathe today!
This song is Breathe Today by Flyleaf. Something I've always loved about this band is the raw emotion in their songs. How they don't sugar coat anything. In their song Red Sam they say, "Here I stand, empty hands, wishing my wrists were bleeding, to stop the pain from the beatings, there you stood, holding me, waiting for me to notice you". They make themselves very vulnerable, but that's why people love this band. Because they can relate. The lead singer, Lacey Mosley, has gone through a stage in her life where she did cut herself and she was suicidal. The day she was going to kill herself, her grandma made her go to church. She said that before, she was an atheist, her life mission was to make people see how stupid it was to believe in God. At church, the preacher started talking about what seemed to be exactly Lacey's life. Then he said, "There's a suicidal spirit in the room, please come up here and let us pray with you." She knew he was talking about her, but she didn't go up there. After the service, the preacher came up to her and said, "The Lord wants you to know that even though you’ve never known an earthly father, he will be a better Father to you than any earthly father could ever be.” This man could have never known that she didn't know her father, she thought it was just a coincidence considering she had purple hair and wore a rock t-shirt. He asked to pray for her, and while they were praying, she felt God's presence in such a powerful way, she felt all the sin in her, she knew that it would have been completely the right choice for God to turn her away, but instead she just felt his love. Isn't that incredible? God wanted her on this earth for a reason. Someone who never believed in this God, who was going to kill themselves, and because one person who loved Him forced her to go to church, her life was saved. She sings about God and his amazing love, she prays with and for her audiences, God is using her, 100%.
I think this song has the coolest lyrics. I had never really thought about the meaning before, but I wanted to dissect this song for you, because I think it has such an incredible meaning!
"You can only move as fast as who's in front of you
And if you assume just like them what good will it do?
So find out for yourself, so your ignorance will stop bleeding through"
They're talking about your friends. Your friends have such a big influence on who you are, you can only grow so much without them getting involved. If you have really spiritual friends who are on fire for God, chances are, you'll be on fire for him too, but if your friends are drug addicts and swear a lot, you might fall into that trap. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be friends with them, come on, Jesus hung out with the prostitutes and the drunks, he loved everyone, of course we should do the same. I'm just saying, that you also need to surround yourself with people who allow you to and want you to grow. If you think about everything in the same way as them, basically, if you share a brain, how will that help you or anyone? You need to be yourself. You need to be who God wants you to be, not what people want you to be! You need to explore, you need to be YOU, because at the end of the day, it's not other people who matter, right? Ignorance is not bliss.
"You can breathe today...
So many lies swirling all around you
You're suffocating
The empty shape in you steals your breath
You're suffocating"
I feel like they're saying that Satan fills your head with lies about yourself. That you're not pretty enough, good enough, no one likes you, nobody cares, you have no friends, no one loves you. Yes, I struggle daily with many of these things. These thoughts soon fill your mind and you start obsessing. You can't think of anything else. You're suffocating in these lies. The empty shape is the person you want to be, or are trying to be. The person you think people will like better, who'll be prettier, who will have love and friends and will feel good enough. But you soon lose yourself in this person you're trying to become, who is not you. Soon, your own self will die. Suffocate.
"Logic forces me to believe in this and I have learned to see
And I can only say what I've seen and heard and only you can choose
And every choice you make will affect you, search your own self"
If I told you that there was a baby born to a virgin, impossible, who lived a sin free life, impossible, who died and was brought back to life three days later, impossible, and God took him up to heaven, alive, also impossible, would you believe me? Well, that's your choice. Quite honestly, I could never and would never even try to force someone to believe in God. He gave us the freedom to decide for ourselves whether we want to serve him or not. If he forced us, what good would that do? We wouldn't have a choice to love him or not. And if we didn't have a choice, he wouldn't feel our love and want us to follow him as much as he does now, because we would have to. I have seen God work, I've witnessed it, I have proof. I have heard many stories of what he's done in the lives of my friends and people I don't even know. It's incredible. So choose for yourself, do you believe in this man who did the impossible? Basically, God came down to earth in human form. Simple as that. God is known for doing the impossible. If you do decide to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and have not yet, PLEASE talk to me! I can pray with you, for you, or direct you to someone else if you're more comfortable with that. I just want to help YOU!
"Big enough to fill the void that inside of you
It's just a breath away"
You always hear people talking about how they have everything the world can offer them, everything they've ever wanted, a big house, nice cars, spending money, designer clothes, everything, but they still feel empty. If you don't have God, you don't have anything. "Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being." [Matthew 6:19-21, The Message] Things on this earth are only temporary, but God is forever. All you have to do to fill that emptiness, to ask Jesus into your heart, is say a few simple words.
This song, before I actually listened to the words and understood what they were saying, was just something I liked the tune of. Songs can be so much more than that. Look at your favorite song or songs, dissect it, really listen to what the lyrics are saying. Is that the kind of person you want to be? Is this how you want to define yourself? If not, I have plenty of music choices for you!
God bless,
Ariel