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A Fool in Christ

It’s so easy to cash in these chips on my shoulder  
So easy to loose this old tongue like a tiger  
It’s easy to let all this bitterness smolder, just to hide it away like a cigarette lighter  
It’s easy to curse and to hurt and to hinder  
It’s easy to not have the heart to remember  
That I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God  
I’ve got voices that scream in my head like a siren  
Fears that I feel in the night when I sleep  
Stupid choices I made when I played in the mire, like a kid in the mud on some dirty blind street /
I’ve got sorrow to spare, I’ve got loneliness too  
I’ve got blood on these hands that hold on to the truth  
That I am a priest and a prince in the Kindgom of God  
I swore on the Bible to not tell a lie / But I’ve lied and lied  
And I crossed my heart and I hoped to die / And I’ve died and died  
But if it’s true that you gathered my sin in your hand, and you cast it as far as the east from the west
If it’s true that you put on the flesh of a man,
and you walked in my shoes through the shadow of death
If it’s true that you dwell in the halls of my heart
Then I’m not just a fool with a fancy guitar  
No, I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

- Andrew Peterson 
(Song : A Fool With A Fancy Guitar)

Why a fool?  The foolishness lies in the contradiction. The 'fancy guitar' is the outward facade. The part that everyone sees. The non-public experience is one of anger, bitterness, loneliness, sorrw lies and many such myriads of sins and difficult experiences. The fooliness is that a child of God seeks after these things. Holds onto these temporal realities and forgets his true identity in Christ. He finds it so "easy to cash in these chips". 

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