Chapter 3: Redemption in the Landscape

Finally! It's come time for chapter 3. You probably thought it would never come, well it's here, and you finally have a meaty post to break down.
This post confounded me a bit, because, as much as I searched, I couldn't think of a song that represented the incredible experience of salvation for me. It took me quite a while, and I almost opted for a lesser song, but after searching for a while, I remembered the song, titled quite appropriately, 'Redemption', by Jars Of Clay. In some respects, it gives meaning to what the journey to salvation looks like for many, and I related to it in a strong way.
But I'll let the song speak for itself. Maybe it will speak to you like it did to me.

We made it to a strange town
Going down the wrong road
Like any story retold
Couldn't find a common ending
We're way gone, be gone, looking for our own way

We needed a distraction
You said you were redemption

I was simply a wanderer, a nomad, wanting to live in the world, but not feeling part of it, and not understanding why. Best I could do was wander from place to place, looking for shelter from the weather. I never really felt like I was going the right way, there was never closure. Every time I got somewhere, I found the need to move on soon after. I had no place to call my own, but when I would arrive somewhere, I'd always feel the need to find something else.
Then came the stranger, though in some ways, it felt as if I'd known Him all along. It was someone to talk to, someone to share my troubles with. I didn't even know who He was. I was soon to find out.

We knew it as a wrong turn
We couldn't know the things we'd gain
When we reach the other border
We look out way down past the road we came from

I knew I wasn't heading in the right way, but what could I do? I had nowhere else to go. There wasn't really a way to say I'd gained ground, or had discovered any answers, if anything, I just circled back to my own original questions. I was lost with no way of getting on the right road again, and not only was I lost, I didn't know if I cared anymore. The stranger just listened with quiet understanding, and I felt more and more at ease sharing with Him.

We were looking out past the road we came from

Looking at redemption
Hidden in the landscape
Of loss and love and fire and rain
Never would have come this way
Looking for redemption
In the eyes of sorrow, eyes of rage
What a sordid histories they played
The drama of redemption
Redemption

Soon, I began to look past my shoulder, and to my amazement, I found that I was on the right road, and had been so ever since I'd met this stranger. In fact, He was no longer a stranger. He was a friend. And I knew Him well. It is amazing to think how subtle salvation can be at times. It shows itself much better in retrospect than in immediacy. I never knew my salvation was at hand the entire time. But when I looked back on the ground we had covered, I saw the ways that I had been with my savior all along, that I was safe, and that those times of rain and storm, and the struggle to survive were all part of a greater plan, one that is still being unravled. The strangers on the road were simply my audience, witnesses to the play that my life is to be. It is like a great drama, every part of it with a different story to tell. Salvation is not one moment, it is a lifetime. Every scene is new and uncertain, every event a new twist to the story, but the ending is sure, that love will redeem us, and our stories will be fulfilled by the playright, who with great genius has written a masterpiece in each of us, a tale of His redemption.