But, here's what struck me more than anything... After watching The Monster Ball, it's so much more obvious that we were MADE to worship. The Monster Ball will set you free, she says! You can be whoever or whatever you want to be! It's ok! And that is gospel to some people who have always felt hated and like freaks. (Side note - Church how messed up are we that so many people feel this way because we judge them instead of teaching them the gospel of grace.) But something else is at play here...
Gaga has perfected her craft. A perfect cocktail of the melodies that pull you in and latch in your brain. They're irresistible! She takes what culture says is inappropriate, and what new counter-culture says ought to be celebrated. People don't appreciate theatre as much anymore, but we were designed to respond to stories, and that is what theatre is, and Gaga pulls it off perfectly. Plus, a good shot of pure musical talent. And then - with a dash of relation to the perfect target - the loser kid in every person. Gaga says "I was you." I hated myself. I was common, dirty, poor, had weird desires, and wasn't like the other kids, and so are you, and that's ok. Everyone hates something about themselves, or feels worthless in some way, and we are all looking for a savior.
I didn't used to believe that. I thought, "What do I need to be saved from?" And on good days, you can bypass the savior issue because its not a problem. It's those days where you wish you could rip your heart from your chest to stop the pain and can't cry another tear but you're still sobbing that you just wish somebody would save you. And then its the moments when you feel like you don't have any friends, that you're worthless, and you don't know why people like you, and you don't think you're valuable. Those moments say - SAVE ME. What gets overlooked when we just accept that we were born this way, and try to be happy and satisfied in that, is the fact that while yes, we were born corrupted, broken, and doomed to experience pain, is the fact that it SHOULD NOT BE THIS WAY.
We should never have experienced those feelings! We should never have had to deal with feeling like losers. There should never have been war, or disgrace, or evil, or hate, or death, or disease, or any of that. Something is wrong here.
Creation is groaning. We search for a saviour. We feel out of place. We need somebody to save us from whatever the heck is wrong in us, because we fractured the universe. For all these complexities to exist, a being that is beyond all this had to have created it all. Then, because he is so good and perfect, any rebellion from that perfect goodness is so heinous that it can fracture the universe. And due to our weakness for lies and pride, we fell for it, and we fractured the universe, and so we deal with this need for a savior and our broken screwed up bodies and souls all these years later. And so we go to the Monster Ball, and we wanna dance so bad, and we wanna scream because it feels so perfect! But at the end of the night, we go home... and we're alone... and we still hurt... but what can truly fix the loneliness, and the dissatisfaction with ourselves that we don't admit, is faith. Faith in the man who defeated all those crappy horrible things, and who can reconcile us to the God we gave the finger to.
Simple faith. And then to just glorify God, cause he's bigger and better than we could even fantasize about being, and then just to enjoy him forever.
"The real battle in life is to be as happy in God as we can be." - John Piper
"One great advantage of fighting devils is that their masters hate them
as much as the devils hate us."
- C.S. Lewis
as much as the devils hate us."
- C.S. Lewis
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