When you hear a good song, you like it the first time you hear it, in most circumstances. Something deep within you is stirred by the combination of great lyrics and the way the instruments work together to make a beautiful melody. One of my favorite songs – “Remedy” by David Crowder – has all of these things and more. The harmonies and the scenic instruments work together to complete a delightful sound to your ears.
The song “Remedy” is one of my favorites because of the way it sums up God’s love for broken people like us. It starts out very relaxed with the xylophone and the ukulele and soft pattern on the drums. Then the singing begins: “Here we are; the broken and used; mistreated, abused.” These lyrics are true in a lot of people’s cases. We are broken, like that girl who got raped at eleven and can’t love again! Used, mistreated and abused. Like that boy who gets beaten by his dad on a regular occasion! The song gradually gets faster towards the chorus; the buildup symbolizes the triumph of what David Crowder is singing about. “So we lift up our voices,” he sings. “We open our hands, to cling to the love that we can’t comprehend!”
I truly believe that once you are saved, you want to jump up and down and share with everyone the great miracles that God has done in your life. That’s the same basic idea that David Crowder is talking about. We lift up our voices and open our hands! We are eager to praise God because He saves us! And even then, we cannot grasp the concept of the love that God has for us, because it’s beyond human comprehension.
The world around us teaches us that the love of God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter – that we should only worry about ourselves. We have been brought up in a world that is vulgar, selfish and teaches the wrong ways for a Christian. It’s hard to get out of that lifestyle, even after we are saved. But we must remember what Jesus said: “Take courage, for I have overcome the world.” David’s song reminds us of this – that Jesus is our remedy, that He took our place on that Cross so we don’t have to worry about the world we live in. Instead we can try to help others in the way that God has helped us.
I have a question for you. What frees you from feeling broken, bandaged or mistreated? We all have things in our lives that keep us from seeing God’s face. All of us are here in this world bandaged and bruised! Just like David Crowder states in this song, we are waiting for a cure. But many of us don’t realize that Jesus is that cure. The cure that mends our broken hearts and fills the void within us! Our beautiful King brings relief, and He is with us wherever we are in life! He went through worse things than we went through. In fact, He went through the worst of all; he was beaten and was crucified, willingly, for our sins!
He is the one who has saved us, David sings; he is the one who forgave us; the one who came and is coming again! He’s the remedy. We don’t have to worry about anything in life because we have a God who is willing to take everything we are going through, and handle it for us! We have to have faith that He will either take it away from us – or work through us to deal with it. Either way, He will handle it, if we allow Him to.
So we must let go and let God be our remedy. As David Crowder says in his song, “We lift up our voices, open our hands, let go of the things that have kept us from Him.” If you find this difficult, picture yourself kneeling at the Cross. This mental image of myself kneeling at the Cross helps me whenever I have trouble letting go of something. Because the Cross is where Christ let go of His own life to take a hold of me!
The lyrics in this song have so much meaning. At the end of this song, we are asked to be the remedy. Jesus doesn’t only heal us; He works through us to heal the broken people all around us. Consequently we now have the power, with God, to change lives and to help others see how great God is.
