#about:johnny boy ep

[topismyworshipmusic]

Time to Say Goodbye

To read a Christian’s perspective on what the song Time to Say Goodbye by my favorite band in the whole wide world Twenty Øne Piløts click the read more. <3

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting at all, my goal was to write one of these a week, but life gets in my way. Hopefully things will calm down soon and I can maintain a steady schedule so I can post more. Today I’m going to be dissecting Time To Say Goodbye by Twenty Øne Piløts. This is my third favorite TØP song of all time, it comes off of the Johnny Boy EP that came out in 2009 and this song samples Andrea Bocelli’s Con te Partirò which means Time To Say Goodbye. This song is definitely an underrated TØP song, but it’s amazing and has helped me during my lows, like Be Concerned this song feels like an ugly prayer, a song that you can just scream up to God when you don’t understand what you’re feeling or why you’re feeling it. If you’ve never heard of this TØP song before I sincerely hope you add it to your playlist, this song deserves more attention because it’s a masterpiece. Warning; this explanation is a little shorter and choppier than my previous ones. There are not as many Bible references as other TØP songs, but it was on my heart to write about this one.

I don’t think that this song is as Biblically based as it is a song to pray to because it is so real, raw and honest. The song starts out with the lyric “You split, and take in every time you see a fake and counterfeit. In the mirror you appear to see fear and whisper 'this is it', at the mirror you appear to see nothing else, but yourself as a face, a hollowed-out space.” In quite a few of Twenty Øne Piløts songs Tyler talks about how he feels split. I think as Christians we all feel this way, we know what’s right and honorable, we know what we should do, but the sinful side of us doesn’t want to do what is good. It wants to do what is easy, what feels safe. Even Jesus knew we were going to struggle with feeling this way, in Matthew 26 Jesus asked his closest friends to keep watch for Him while He prayed, of course his friends wanted to, but they just couldn’t stay awake. In verse 41 Jesus says “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. The way I look at this lyric from Time To Say Goodbye and this verse from Matthew is Tyler doesn’t want to feel the way that he does. He doesn’t want to let the depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation to take over, but it does. He fights, but the darkness still takes over, they key is to find the light even in the darkness, to find the hope in the pain and the joy in the trial. During His life Jesus faced trials, temptation and pain of all kinds, but He never let anything satan threw His way cause Him to stumble. Instead, Jesus kept Himself focused on God, His promises, His truth, His love and the plan that God had for all of us to be saved.

The next lyric I want to talk about is “I never felt closer to you, just crying as you torture me”, there’s not particular scripture that reminds me of this lyric, but it makes me think about how God allows us to go through difficult situations so that we can lean on Him and get our comfort from Him and Him alone. Lately I’ve been going through a major trial at work and learning that working for the comany that I work for isn’t as nice as I thought it was. God has really used this time to help me realize that working for my company is not my dream job and I’m called to something totally different. It sucks that for me to learn this lesson God had to rip the rose colored glasses off of me and show me reality in a painful way, but it’s all part of His plan and all of my suffering has a purpose. Some of my favorite scriptures for remembering to draw my comfort from God are; Psalm 18:2 - “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”, Psalm 23:4 -  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”, 2 Corinthians 12:9 - “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.”, Philippians 4:13 - “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” and Psalm 27:1 - “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”. God never causes the negative situations we are in, James 1:17 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”, but He does use them for His glory and His good.

In verse two Tyler says “And I'm standing on a tower trying my hardest to make it to You, but I built this tower out of mortal bricks they're breaking” this lyric reminds me of what Jesus said in Luke 14:28-30 when He was talking about the cost of being a disciple; “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.”  in this verse Jesus is saying that if you want to be His disciple you need to have a foundation in Him, His words and His teachings before you can truly be His disciple. In order to have faith in Jesus and give our life to Him we need to know what that entails, we need to have a foundation in His love so we can follow His example and carry our cross daily (Luke 9:23). In John 8:31-32 Jesus says; “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”. As followers of Christ we need to make it a point to be in His word daily. Reading our Bibles helps to strengthen our faith, keep our convictions and connect with God on a personal level. The Bible is the living word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and the word is God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17), it is the only book in the world that can cut you like a double edged sword, but make you feel so much love that it’s overwhelming. God gave us the word so we could see Him through it, reading the Bible teaches us about Him, His character and most importantly how much He loves us. The word is how we stay grounded as disciples of Christ, it’s how we combat all of the anxiety, depression, anger, hopelessness and doubt that we feel every day and the Bible is applicable in every situation. Take a deep breath in and make all of your thoughts captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), He’s got this, He’s in control.