Diamonds In The Rough (2008) "Until the End"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Weekends on young & angry Street,
we'd meet, drink 'til trouble found us there,
living life as without a care (without a care).
We've had our fights, been black and blue,it's true.
I've even gone to jail for you, my friends.
Bet your life that I'd do it again.

Until the end...

Don't change the way you think of me,
we're from the same story.
Life moves on, can't stay the same,
but some of us...some worry.

While some have gone their separate ways,
there's some still caught up with the past instead.
But move on, you're missing most of your life (life).
They say it's hard to stay the same,
When some fail, while other men seem to gain, but friends, I'll be with you here until the end.

Until the end...

Don't change the way you think of me,
we're from the same story.
Life moves on, can't stay the same,
but some of us...some worry.

We're all falling forward,
with no signs of slow.
And some moving faster,
But that's all that I wanted, I wanted.

You know it's hard,
it's passing by;
memories,
be out all night.
To reminisce won't bring you back, just look ahead and hold on tight.

We're all falling forward,
with no signs of slow.
And some moving faster,
But that's all that I wanted, I wanted.

Don't change the way you think of me, oh yeah.

Until the end...
Until the end...
Until the end...

Yes, people change, it's part of life, whatever isn't growing is dying, you never get to stay the same; nothing stays the same. But change doesn't necessarily mean that the bond of love needs to break. People who are willing to bend towards each other, include each other in the ways they're growing and changing, who enter into each other's lives, listen to each other's stories, respect and hold with love each other's world views end up being very close.

But it doesn't always happen that way, does it. Looking back on our friendships from years ago, how many have stuck with us? Some people stay best friends from kindergarten to old age. But usually, with each new season we enter in life come new friends, and the old friends are left in the past. Grade school, middle school, high school, college....we lose touch, we move on.

Often you and I experience life transforming events which make the past seem like something that happened to some other person. Paul the apostle felt like that when he wrote,

You know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law Book.

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.

I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

Like this song today, Paul was saying,

just look ahead and hold on tight

Still, that's not the main point of this song. The main point is that to try and hang onto the past is to miss out on what life has ahead. Everyone is moving forward, you can't stop the motion of time, or life. Yet that doesn't mean love can't continue with change, "But friends, I'll be with you here until the end."

Many things change, yet love is resilient enough to grow and adapt with those changes. Paul never lost or forgot his love for his old friends, from the old life he led as a Pharisee. He tried to his last day to reach out to them and bring them into the new life he'd discovered with Jesus.

And Jesus, though He changed where He lived, from earth to heaven, He made the same promise to His friends, and through them to you and me today, "I'll be with you... day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation