Scripture Saturday plus a Song

I've been listening to Sara Groves since I went to her concert. Everyone kept telling me that they loved the song "Painting Pictures of Egypt," but every time I heard it, I wasn't really paying attention only heard the line with the title of the song. Today, I finally paid enough attention to say "Wow!" :)

The song is based on Exodus 16:3. The Israelites are wandering in the desert after the Lord has led them out of Egypt, where they had been in slavery. The verse says, "The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.'"

I know in my own life, it is so true that I look back on the places I've been and sometimes choose to only see the idyllic part of the journey, not the sweat and tears that were involved. Sometimes, even when it's a painful place, the familiar of the past is so much easier to handle than the unknown future. But I love the line in the chorus of the song that says "the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I've learned." Going back wouldn't work, even if I could do it.

Here are the lyrics:
I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

BRIDGE:
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?