For several months now, almost every time I’m in the truck listening to Christian radio, I hear Slow Fade by Casting Crowns. It’s a powerful song about how insidious and subtle the intrusion of sin is in our lives. If we are not actively maintaining our guard and equipping ourselves with the Word, we are subject to the erosion of the culture’s bombardment against us. This is my concern for young Christians who have been discipled just enough to think, “Okay, I’ve got this Christian thing down pat.” Failing to stay with the disciplined life and continuing to grow in the principles of scripture is a sure set up for being set back. Learning to persevere in the faith takes time. So many people don’t make the commitment of time to get to the place of being able to exercise discernment about the negative influences that come their way. Six months in a “long term recovery program” is just a bare beginning for women who have spent their lives at the mercy of a culture that has chewed them up and spit them out. As I see some of them graduating and preparing to go back, some I believe have “got it”. They understand the necessity of maintaining their discipline, they have made good plans for avoidance of the old influences, they have enough self awareness to know their weaknesses and triggers. For them, I have hope. For others, I fear that it will be a case of slow fade. They don’t seem to have the passion and understanding to know how dangerous the world they are returning to is going to be, even now after their time out from it. Some will, inevitably, call at some point in the future saying, “I need help again. I’m right back where I was.”
There is an old rhyme I encountered once and recorded in my journal:
“Some want to live within the sound
of the chapel’s ringing bell.
I want to run a rescue team
Outside the gates of hell.”
That’s what I feel that I am doing sometimes – intercepting and redirecting, with God’s strength and power, almost at the last minute for some. When we send them out, I just pray that God will be faithful to complete the good work He’s begun in each of them. But they have to do their part in that, too, by continuing to be obedient and diligent. I pray, also, that I will have done a good enough job in laying the groundwork for that to happen.
Slow Fade by Casting Crowns
Be careful little eyes what you see
It’s the second glance that ties your hands as darkness pulls the strings
Be careful little feet where you go
For it’s the little feet behind you that are sure to follow
CHORUS:
It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away
It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It’s a slow fade, it’s a slow fade
Be careful little ears what you hear
When flattery leads to compromise, the end is always near
Be careful little lips what you say
For empty words and promises lead broken hearts astray
CHORUS
The journey from your mind to your hands
Is shorter than you’re thinking
Be careful if you think you stand
You just might be sinking
CHORUS
Daddies never crumble in a day
Families never crumble in a day
It’s a slow fade.
*Oh be careful little eyes what you see
Oh be careful little eyes what you see
For the Father up above is looking down in love
Oh be careful little eyes what you see*