So Give Me Something to Believe...

Believe  (please click on song title to hear the song)

by the Bravery (2007, from The Sun and the Moon)

The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack
Waiting for our ship to come but our ships not coming back
We do our time like pennies in a jar
What are we saving for [x2]

There's a smell of stale fear that's reeking from our skins.
The drinking never stops because the drinks absolve our sins
We sit and grow our roots into the floor
But what are we waiting for? [x2]

So give me something to believe
Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe

Something's always coming you can hear it in the ground
It swells into the air
With the rising
Rising sound
And never comes but shakes the boards and rattles all the doors
What are we waiting for [x2]

I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing
Now its just what I've become
What am I waiting for
Its already done

 

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

by Green Day (2004 from American Idiot)

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone, I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk a-

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's f**ked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone…

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a-

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1.    What do you think that the writers of these songs are looking for?  Are they looking for a purpose, companionship, God?  How do their feelings differ about what is missing in their lives?

 

2.    Do you feel that God is truly present in your life?  Have you ever felt the longing for purpose that is expressed by the Bravery?  Have you ever felt complacent like Green Day?

3. How can we help someone who feels like this?  As Christians, how can we reach out to someone in need of God’s presence in their life?