My older brother is the one who introduced me to Chance the Rapper. This was sometime between "10 Day" and "Acid Rap". I thought he was so dope and I really felt like people would love him when they listened to his music.

I like to learn about who the artists really are and I found out that Chance has a lot of faith in God. I love me some Jesus Christ so that made me like him 10x more!

Although I believe that God can use you in many different ways even if you're creating secular music, I loved how he directly put gospel music in his album 'Coloring Book'! My grandma would literally try to argue with me that he was a gospel singer when she heard "How Great" on the radio.

In "How Great", the interlude says "God is better than the world's best thing". That's a very strong statement to make. It really stood out to me and made me think.

This means that the things that are painted as valuable in the world such as money, jewelry, sex, and more all fall short in comparison to God.

Nehemiah 9:6 You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.

I imagine this would be hard to comprehend living in a world that conditions you to believe the opposite. In the world, the most respected positions are the ones that are highest paying positions. This confounds me why the world would only praise the highest paid as the ones living the most valuable and perfect life but billionaires kill themselves.

What's amazing to me is that even today people still shame people for pursuing career fields that don't immediately promise a high paying salary but we're all aware of people worth billions of dollars killing themselves. Almost as if we're ignoring it.

So then I HAD to look at God and ask "what are things that you see of real value? What should I value? What should I treasure and fight for no matter what for my own peace?"

God, what is the point of me chasing the money if it ends up killing me and taking my life away? What is the point of me chasing after it if, in the end, I was never really, seriously as happy as I could've been? or should've been?

How valuable are the things in life that can be taken from me? How valuable are the clothes I wear that can go out of style or the accessories or shoes? What do you want me to place my heart in and walk in? What do you want me to treasure?

Because honestly, If I don't go to you about it then I'm going to keep choosing the wrong things.

That's how I see this verse of the song. I see it as the times when I'm trying to fulfill the tough times when I really NEED God and I go and try to fill it with something else. It never fills the void. Have you ever just felt a void in your heart or in your spirit and it just feels like a fermenting pain in your chest?

This is God trying to get our attention, big time.

I see this verse of the song as Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." God, I'm sorry for the times you've been trying to get my attention but I chose something else because I didn't think you could fix it. I'm sorry for being arrogant in thinking that going to one of my friends would've been better when it was time to go to you.

These places where I'm using everything but seeking you to fix what only you can fix, don't work. They just make me more and sicker because I NEED you.

I don't believe anything can be compared to experiencing God. I don't believe anything can be compared to knowing him or having him in your life. I have used everything I've known to use in people, stuff, money, pride, arrogance, and the list goes on.

The best things in the world are not bad things but I've learned that they can not be my God.

What do you think?

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