Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire is another favorite Bastille song, and this is why.

There is no guarantee of anything in this life. We have this incessant desire to collect and amass. We forget that we are sojourners–we try to make our home here. Whether it is material possessions, memories, relationships, whatever we find valuable we store up and treasure. We hold on so tightly to this world. But what happens? It is “shattered into ash.” It won’t last. What we hold so carefully crumbles at our touch. How hard this lesson is to learn. There is so much that seems worthy of trust. The world can look reliable and safe. We think our lives are fireproof. But we eventually confront the truth, that we were born with nothing and have nothing now. We must confront the world’s uncertainty and fragility. That can be devastating. Devastating and disorienting. When the place we call home is suddenly a place of destruction, we don’t know what to do.

What I really appreciate about Bastille is their honesty about ourselves.

I was the match and you were the rock
Maybe we started this fire
We sat apart and watched
All we had burned on the pyre.

Either directly or indirectly, we set fire to our lives. We’re not these innocent beings, assaulted by malevolent fates that want to ruin our happiness. We can’t blame anyone else. We can’t pretend we are good people who inexplicably have bad things happen to them. When we stand in the ruins of our broken lives, we must remember that we have done this. Maybe we can clearly remember a specific action or decision which led to this. Or maybe it is just the reality of our sin and fallenness. We are not victims, we are perpetrators. We tear down our own lives and sometimes the lives of others. We would set fire to the earth if it were not for the grace of God.

Have you been through this? Have you watched something in your life burn to ashes, knowing that it was your hand which struck the match? Have you held the debris of your past, remembering that you were the one to crush it?

Perhaps this is something like what Adam and Eve felt as they were ordered out of the Garden. Looking back to a world they had destroyed. I wonder how many times they replayed that moment, when they fell for the Serpent’s lies. The moment that changed everything. And though they tried to blame each other and Satan, that facade couldn’t be kept up. They each bore the weight of their own part in the decision. They had to confront and live with the darkness in their souls.

The only hope we have from our own depravity is the grace of God. He holds back our fallenness so that we don’t destroy everything. And He offers redemption to all who would believe. He has not left us in a state of sin and hopelessness. There is grace and salvation not only from our sin but from the judgement that our sin must receive. We are depraved wretches, but we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

“Things We Lost In The Fire”

Things we lost to the flames
Things we’ll never see again
All that we’ve amassed
Sits before us, shattered into ash