EXETEO
The Name: The name for this song was taken from the Greek “ekzeteo”, which means “to seek or to reach out, figuratively to worship.”
This song was born of a frustration and questions that I think most people can relate to. It was written during a class I took at Carson-Newman College called Utopia/Dystopia. As part of the course material I read many thinkers who challenged my faith. I interacted with thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, B.F. Skinner, and Sigmund Freud. On a daily basis the very foundations of my faith were challenged by some of Christianity’s greatest critics. It was a depressed semester as one voice after another vied for position in my head.
There were many times that semester that I reached a point of
desperation with a God who didn’t seem to want to take part in the
discussion. My heart cried out, “Defend yourself! Answer your
critics! Respond to the challenges laid before you!” It seems God
has a history of remaining silent before his accusers.
If you’ve been a Christian for more than a week you’ve probably had to ask some of the same questions I did. I met a man recently who was a Director of Missions in Middle Tennessee. He described his relationship with God as silent and dry. His grandson had been in a car accident and had been injured badly. While the injuries were not life-threatening, they did leave the possibility of necessitating amputation of his right arm. The man and his family prayed valiantly, crying out to God day and night to allow their grandson to keep all of his limbs. They felt confident that what they were asking in Jesus’ name would be given to them. It wasn’t. He lost his arm. They didn’t know what to make of it. They couldn’t understand what point God was trying to make. Worst of all, God wasn’t talking to them at all. It just seemed like He didn’t care.
The question this song poses is, can we still trust what God says when we can’t hear his voice? It is easy to trust God when everything is going your way and you can clearly see His hand at work in everything you do. Can you still trust him when you can’t understand what He is doing? Can you rely on what he says when He is silent for a period?
The song draws in the story of Thomas who, having been told of Jesus’ resurrection, refused to believe. He said “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:24-31). Notice that when Jesus shows up, Thomas never touches. He immediately declared Jesus his “Lord and… God.”
I am often guilty of the same thing Thomas was. I can be cynical. I sometimes refuse to believe until I’ve seen the hard evidence. I believe strongly that we, as believers, need to be critical thinkers. We shouldn’t just accept any teaching or believe anything that we are told. We should ask questions. We should challenge assumptions. But there is a fine line between being a critical thinker and being a cynical thinker. Jesus quickly points out to Thomas, “You believe because you have seen. But blessed is he who believes but has not seen
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