Two songs... Two overlapping worlds...

Yesterday, I was finishing a run when I heard two songs back-to-back on my iPod. The first song is one that has always resonated in my imagination - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day. This song has always captured my attention. Here are the lyrics:

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

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

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

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*%@ed up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

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

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

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...

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...

The next song that came on is one of my recent favorites by the David Crowder Band -"Everything Glorious." Here are the lyrics:

The day is brighter here with You
The night is lighter than its hue
Would lead me to believe
Which leads me to believe

(chorus)
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours
What does that make me?

My eyes are small but they have seen
the beauty of enormous things
Which leads me to believe
there's light enough to see that

(chorus)
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours

From glory to glory
You are glorious You are glorious
From glory to glory
You are glorious. You are glorious
Which leads me to believe
why I can believe that


You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours

From glory to glory From glory to glory
You are glorious. You are glorious.
You are glorious. You are glorious.

Two songs... Two different worlds. In many ways, I feel the pull between the two. Sometimes I feel like I am walking in this world alone (even though I am surrounded by close family, friends and a wonderful church family) and other times I feel like God is making everything glorious in and through me (especially in those same relationships).

The apostle Paul often uses the image of taking off the old and putting on the new for the Christian life. The reality in this life is that followers of Christ will never completely feel like they have taken off the old and put on the new but they do get a foretaste of that fully changed life. The old and new worlds overlap.

One of my prayers for 2008 is that it will be a year that includes a movement toward living a life worthy of the calling God has made on my life and that I will identify more with Crowder's song as opposed to Green Day's song (though I still love both of them).

What songs capture your imagination as you look back on 2007 and look toward 2008???