No Thief Like Fear

I am convinced that there's no personal journey so difficult as the one toward a healthy self-image.

I've watched children struggle with it, I've watched adults struggle with it, and I certainly have struggled with it myself, particularly through high school and college.

We all battle our internal demons and doubts, and I continue to learn that this fear only has one cure: the love of God.

When we finally realize how completely accepted and loved we are in the eyes of God, this fear can be destroyed . . . at least until the next time the doubts begin to creep in.

If you're on this journey toward a healthy self-image and understanding the amazing love of God and our identity in Christ, I have a resource to recommend to you: the latest album from Jason Gray.

Yes, this is a shameless CD plug. But I can do it without the slightest hesitation or blink. Jason Gray is a wonderful musician, but he has also walked this path of self-discovery and found his identity, his security, his very voice at the foot of the Cross.

Oddly enough, like a Christian version of Mel Tillis, Jason suffers from a speech impediment, a stammer. Since childhood, he has been ridiculed and picked on, and I can only imagine the doubts and fears that have persecuted him.

But his faith -- a dynamic, emotional faith that under girds all of his music -- has slowly conquered his fears. And it's this theme of security in Christ that resonates on his latest album, "A Way to See in the Dark."

The first single released from the album, "Remind Me Who I Am," makes this point crystal clear. Here is Gray's unveiled prayer to God:

"Tell me once again
who I am to you, who I am to you,
Tell me lest I forget,
who I am to you, that I belong to you

When my heart is like a stone
and I'm running far from home
Remind me who I am
When I can't receive your love
Afraid I'll never be enough
Remind who I am
If I'm your beloved
Can you help me believe it?"

I absolutely love that last line: "If I'm your beloved, can you help me believe it?" And, friends, we are His beloved, and -- if we'll listen -- He is willing to do about anything to prove it to us . . . including dying on a Cross for our sins.

But, still, we all struggle with our insecurities, our doubts, our fears. And it is this fear that Gray addresses in my favorite from the new album, "No Thief Like Fear:"

"I'm tried to blame bureaucracy
The weak-knees of hypocrisy
And the cruel and shifting winds of circumstance
But I know insecurity
Is the worst of my own enemies
He sings his lonely song and I will dance
As he robs me blind
right before my eyes

Set me free, set me free
Oh my God set me free
From the chains holding me
Oh my God set me free."

Again, he is expressing the bedrock of the emotional journey I believe we're all on from childhood . . . and the true answers are only found in Jesus Christ. If you'd like a contemporary Christian album that gives birth to these ideas and sings the truth of God's love into your heart, Gray's newest album is for you.

Yes, the music is fantastic. Yes, he has a great voice. But, most importantly, the lyrics are like modern-day psalms, pulling us deeper into the love and acceptance of the Father through the Cross of Christ . . . and, I don't know about you, but I need that. Desperately.

Every day.

(Editor's Note: If you are interested in purchased Gray's CD, it can be found here. And, no, I don't receive any kickbacks from the artist -- just the satisfaction that someone else will encounter God's truth through his music.)