Ray Li’s Blog

…Inside Your Mind.”

Yesterday I took my cousin Selena from China and a family friend to go see The Phantom of the Opera. It was the most beautiful musical I have seen thus far.

There was one part in particular that stuck out to me.

::SPOILER ALERT::

It was an exchange Raoul had with the Phantom when he was trying to save Christine but was unable to reach her.

Raoul: Have you no compassion?

The Phantom: Compassion?! The world has never had compassion on me!

As I was watching the musical, I was wondering, how does redemption come to someone in as wretched a position as the Phantom? How does the gospel of Jesus Christ redeem people who have received no compassion from the world?

Sometimes the gospel seems so alien to me. How in the world does it fit into this context to save and redeem? How does a risen Son of God bring renewal and rescue to the earth? The sky and the dirt seem so far apart.

Ad I lack compassion. It’s easier to have fuzzy feelings.

In this present age, the redemption does indeed take form through God’s work in jars of clay, but it’s easier to dwell on my depravity and forget the power of the gospel to transform my heart.

So these days I’ve been pumping some David Crowder Band while driving. There’s this one song called Can You Feel It that I thought sucked lyrically but I’ve actually grown to like it.

It begins with the lines “Life makes it so hard sometimes to know what’s real.” Then it goes into a bridge saying “Our God is here” over and over, rising with a monster of a crescendo. It’s like a narrative, struggling with the reality of God, but then seeing that He’s not just an antiquated idea in a book, or a distant guy in the sky, but He is here, right now. The Savior has come, He is here, He is everywhere. I can’t wrap my mind around it.