Hurricane Songs

An unusual number of songs on Christian radio today employ hurricane imagery, if you haven't noticed.  With Hurricane Irene plowing up the coast, it seems like a good time to take a look at these songs, and see what they say about the magnitude, power, and sovereignty of our Lord.

Me in Motion, "Eye of the Hurricane"

The song: This song begins "Feels like the hurricane has come," and depicts a situation of darkness, sorrow, and the potential of physical and spiritual loss.  It's a song sung in the midst of grief, like a psalm of David's, crying "These skies seem empty of Your mercy tonight."  But the chorus declares the greater hope:

"When I'm over my head, yeah,
I'm waiting for a miracle,
I'm fighting the wind and the waves,
Then the weight of this storm drives me straight to Your arms,
You hold me, I know I am safe in the eye of the hurricane."

The image: The trials and pains of this life will affect us like the massive winds, destruction, and storm surges of a hurricane; so big and powerful, it's a threat we cannot escape.  But the nearness of the Lord is like the eye of the hurricane, the place of calm and daylight in the center of the swirling chaos where, actually, there is safety.

Samestate, "Hurricane"

The song: This song's main message is that we did absolutely nothing to merit the free, saving grace that Jesus Christ extended to us - which is absolutely true.  The chorus rings out:

"All at once heads are spinning faster like a hurricane,
'Cause all we did was nothing but a love still came,
And it's bringing in Good News,
His love is comin' back,
For all of us who have a hard time getting it through our brains,
That all we did was nothing but the love still came,
And it's bringing in Good News,
Love is comin' back like a hurricane."

The image: Ironically, there are two uses of the hurricane image in this song, and they do not align with one another!  The first seems somewhat of an idiom, depicting a kind of double-take or wake-up call like the way a hurricane can shake someone up.  The second image is a richer, more Biblical description of the return of Jesus, on a cloud, with thunder and lightning and disturbances in the physical nature of the earth.  Jesus's love for those whom He extended His grace to will return with the magnitude and potential devouring power of a hurricane.

John Mark McMillan, "How He Loves"

The song: This song has become somewhat of a bittersweetly beautiful run-away hit.  John Mark McMillan wrote it in the aftermath of the sudden death of a good friend of his, and now worship teams all over the country play it on Sunday mornings, and many bands, including the Dave Crowder Band, have covered it.  The song is simple: "God loves us, with great intensity."  The most enduring image of the song is in the opening line:

"He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree
Bending beneath
The weight of His wind and mercy."

The image: Think of the Weather Channel footage you've seen of those palm trees in the Bahamas.  They are at the utter will of the wind.  Yet the image in this song seems less violent, at least to me; God's love is not a terrible chaotic thing, but strong and pressing.  In thinking about a hurricane hundreds of miles in diameter against one small tree, it seems like the force could be too much.  But the song never says that God is breaking us under His wrath.  It says that we are bending - bowing - under His mercy.  He won't break us.  At the same time His weight of love is heavy upon us like gale force winds.

Much grace and safety to you all in the path of the storms of this world.