Inner Battle

Lyrics and Explanation

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Verse 1:

At war with the one inside myself,

The one inside myself is my selfish nature.

The battle consumes my soul.

Trying to fight that can be a very difficult thing, and having different parts of you (mind and body, in some cases) want different things is draining.

How can I claim the victory

Victory = the victory Christ promised us over sin.

Before evil takes control?

It feels like it is only a matter of time, a finite number of losses, of giving in to selfish, "sinful" desires before you will no longer be able to resist at all.

Pre-Chorus:

I yearn for light,

I really, earnestly wanted to live for God, and honour Him. The Bible talks about Jesus as the "light of the world".

Yet act in the dark.

I often gave in to temptation, and did things God regards as sinful. Just as the Bible refers to Jesus as the light, so life without Him is a life of darkness.

Watch out for his bite,
If you let him bark.

This is the most obscure line in the song. It is talking about Satan, and how if you let him "bark", i.e. listen to what he says, he gains a toehold in your life, and will sink his teeth into you (his "bite"). Essentially, the more you listen to Satan / your sinful nature, the stronger his influence on your life becomes. Deep, huh?

Chorus:

I so badly want to believe.
In one who came to fully save.

I wanted to completely believe in Jesus. I wanted to that to be absolute, incontrovertible fact for me.

Yet my sins continue to grieve
The one who's Son He freely gave.

If it were absolute fact for me, then why did I continue to openly defy Him by sinning?

Bridge:

I want to live for me,
Yet want to die in God.

Wouldn't this be great? If we could somehow live this life as if it were all there was, pursuing any and all of our desires. Then, prior to death, we could sigh a happy sigh and say "Okay, God, for what's left of it, my life is Yours." Then we'd get all the cool stuff of eternity, like heaven, His eternal love and acceptance, and so on, with none of the inconvenience in this life.

I want to be redeemed,
But I'm a sinful sod.

Essentially I was saying, "I want forgiveness, but I know I can't give up this sin." Without repentance and regret of your actions, true forgiveness isn't possible.

Verse 2:

Grace couldn't have been meant for me,
Since I betray it every day.

It can be incredibly hard to accept God's seemingly illogical, un-just Grace. Especially to me, who just couldn't believe that God would continue to extend Grace to me, despite the fact that I rejected that offer so very often, and chose to go my own way.

How can I live for God, holy
Yet barely remember to pray?

How could I claim to be a Christian, i.e. a follower of Christ, yet never maintain that relationship?

Coda:

I'm a chaos of desires,
I want what I know I must not.

I really like these two lines. I knew intellectually that I shouldn't be doing sinful things. I knew that God probably had a good reason for telling us not to do them. However, I wanted to do them regardless. The whole "Heart vs Mind" thing.

I can't fully serve two sires,

I can't follow both my own selfish desires, or the leadings of Satan, and still claim to follow God. Also a paraphrase of that bit in the Bible (I no longer remember exact quotes or references and I can't be bothered to look it up) where it says "A slave cannot serve two masters".

I must decide before I rot.

I have to make a choice one way or the other before I die. God won't accept me with mixed standards if I keep trying to have it both ways. I either need to give it all to Him, or give it up entirely. I ended up choosing the latter, through an inability to authentically do the former. Maybe one day I will choose the other path, though.