through new eyes

So the other night I went to a concert with katie smith and some people. It was really cool to be in Charlotte and see a bunch of people I knew for the first time in what feels like forever! The concert was some new Christian guy that I haven't heard of because I've been away for so long.

I wish I could describe exactly what I was seeing and feeling as I was watching the concert. I was sitting on a stool and in front of and a little below me was a bunch of people standing in front of the stage. I felt like I was watching my culture through new eyes.

Before I go any further I have to describe what I have known and been seeing for the past year and a half. A culture of young people, a culture of my generation who looks at God with apathy, maybe a little bitterness and actually they don't, for the most part, even look at or consider Him. God is foreign, distant, non-existant, or a great huge tradition. Now, I know I am speaking in a very general sense. I don't know everyone's heart of course. But I was in the middle of these parties where there were thousands upon thousands of people. I talked to many young Spaniards, I learned and asked about their perceptions of God. These are actual things different people have said to me through out my time there:

"oh my gosh!! you actually go to church??? why??" "how can your dad's job be to teach people about God? I mean, what more is there to actually learn about God?" "do protestants believe in one God or many gods? is it a cult? what do they believe?" "molly, when you pray do hear from God?" "molly, it's just not logical that one man could die for all our sins." "I don't have faith in God, I have faith in myself." "molly, Spain pretends to like religion, we have all the crosses and statues of Mary, but really... Spain loves alcohol and Spain loves the party so we have all these religious holidays, but molly, no one really believes it..."

So fast forward thru a year and a half of being around thousands of young people who think like this. Now I am at this Christian concert in America, loud music, lights and a crowd of young people jumping and dancing and lifting their hands and closing their eyes singing about the love of God. I was jealous, I was so jealous for the culture and people I love in Spain.

I watched........ I watched in amazement. I watched in confusion, of why it is so normal for my culture and my American generation to know God loves them and yet His love is so foriegn to so much of the world? I watched in longing, deep longing for my friends in Spain, I wanted them to see this sea of young people who knows they are loved by God. It would be so different, a first for them to see something like this. But maybe if they saw they'd know, maybe they'd believe that there is something more, maybe for the first time they would experience this kind of love, the kind that comes from a God who would actually lay down His life for us and for them. Maybe, they'd see Him through new eyes.