How a Taylor Swift Song Reminded Me of My Worth in Christ

Taylor Swift released another single from her new album last week. Before you exit out of this blog post, I promise I'm not bringing Taylor Swift up for the sake of bringing up Taylor Swift. I have a purpose, I promise. 

The song, "Call It What You Want To," is about her relationship with her boyfriend and how he makes her feel special and loved and how he doesn't care about her reputation. I'm not writing a post about how much I love it (even though I do) or to defend it (because a lot of people don't like it). I'm actually writing because a lot of her lyrics remind me of my relationship with Christ. 

WHAT?? Crazy, right. Let me break it down for you:

All my flowers grew back as thorns
 

 

Windows boarded up after the storm

He built a fire just to keep me warm 

 

All the drama queens taking swings
All the jokers dressing up as kings

They fade to nothing when I look at him
 

And I know I make the same mistakes every time
Bridges burn, I never learn

 

At least I did one thing right

 

 

He loves me like I'm brand new.

To me, this is representative of how we harden our hearts to God after being hurt or betrayed by the world. Instead of directing our anger at what's making us truly upset, we harden our hearts towards God. 

Often, when I sin, I want to hide away. I don't want to confess to my Christian friends, and I certainly don't want to confess to God. Even though I know that I have endless mercy and forgiveness, sometimes I feel like I might run out of chances. So I board up my windows and retreat inward into my shame. 

But Hallelujah! I hope y'all hear me. God doesn't want us to live this way! He wants us to be free. And instead of waiting until we come out of that boarded up shack we hide in, He meets us right in the middle of it. He reminds us that we are loved, that we are enough. He warms the cold parts of us (our shame) and he melts our hard hearts. 
 

At the end of the day, we live in a broken, broken world. It's a common saying that "broken people hurt broken people." It's something we can't avoid as Christians living in this world. 

Yet, we know that when we fix our eyes on Christ, these things fade away. In the larger scheme of eternity and our reward in heaven, these petty, earthly wounds don't matter. 

And this points out our sinful nature. We do the same things wrong over and over again. We believe the lies of the enemy. We elevate things in our lives as idols so that they become more important than God. Though we repent and are forgiven, we will inevitably sin again. In that sense, we "never learn."

For me, the "one thing right" is choosing to let go of my shame and ask for forgiveness. The actual act of repentance isn't something we can be forced into. It has to be a choice. Of course, we don't deserve it, and we can't earn it; however, the Lord extends it to us anyway. We have to be willing to accept it.

This lyric comes up in the chorus, and it's the first lyric that really made me think about Christ. We sin and we fail and we disappoint and we hurt, but God sees the blood of Christ covering us. He sees the new creations Christ has made us into. He literally loves us like we are brand new every day. How encouraging is that?

Y'all know I'm pretty much looking for an excuse to bring up Taylor Swift, but this time, I told you it'd be worth it! I think it's amazing how God can take anything in this world and use it to bring Him glory. I hope you're having an amazing Monday and that you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep this weekend.