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"Even If" by MercyMe

Those that know me well know that I'm not the biggest fan of most contemporary Christian music. I find the style to be largely repetitive, but that isn't my issue. The lyrics are often just so mediocre. They are often more about feeling good about yourself than worshiping God, and the ones that do try to praise God often are so theologically bland that they amount to nothing more than a sweet nothing.

Of course not all contemporary Christian music suffers from this problem. If I'm being honest, a lot of the old hymns suffer from the same problem. Occasionally, however, I stumble across a song that has a profound theological message that actually connects with me.

Now I know that I am not the most emotionally connective person in the world. I don't really encounter God through emotional experiences. I never really felt the "mountaintop" feeling a lot of my peers would experience after summer camp or a mission trip. So maybe this is one reason why I don't connect much with modern Christian music, because a lot of it is designed to connect on this level. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We are all different.

However, as I said, occasionally I do find a song I like that moves me. One such song is "Even If" by MercyMe. This is a song that I've heard on the radio before several times, but recently I really listened to it and paid attention to the words. What I found was something actually profound that connected with me.

The song is essentially prayer asking God to rescue from a hard situation. The song declares that God is perfectly capable of ending suffering, rescuing the believer, and fixing the situation. However, the prayer acknowledges that even if God doesn't, our hope is still in him alone.

Now obviously I have paraphrased the song, but the point remains. God is capable of dealing with all of our pain and suffering with a word, but even if he doesn't he is still faithful, good, and our hope. That is a spiritually mature statement that is hard to live out, and it is totally in line with Scripture. Good job MercyMe.

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