2020-06-09 Engage Students - Chris Analyzes NF Paralyzed

The speaker welcomes viewers to "Chris Analyzes Songs" and discusses their approach to analyzing songs and drawing lessons from them. They mention that not all the songs they analyze will be Christian songs, but they believe that there is always something to learn from any song. They then proceed to analyze the song "Paralyzed" by the Christian rapper NF. They discuss the themes of despair, feeling lost, and the importance of seeking help and talking about one's emotions. They also mention that it is normal to experience these feelings and encourage viewers to reach out for support. The speaker relates the song to their own experiences with depression and emphasizes the importance of honest communication with God and seeking His guidance. They also reference a Bible verse that explores similar thoughts on life and death. The speaker highlights the fear of not making the most of one's life and suggests finding purpose in bringing joy and sharing the truth of the gospel. They discuss the Good morning, and welcome to Chris Analyzes Songs. Recently, I asked on Instagram, what are some of the songs that you guys are listening to that you would like to hear my thoughts on? And not just my thoughts in general, but I'm thinking of how can we draw a lesson from these songs? What can we learn from these songs? And not all of the songs that I'm going to be doing are going to be Christian songs, because I believe that if we are thinking critically as Christians, that God can teach us something from everything, whether or not the creators of that artwork intended for us to get that message, there's always something that we can learn. I'm not necessarily saying I approve of every song and every message that the artist is trying to get across in every song that I might be talking about, but saying that there's something we can learn, even if it might be the opposite message of the song. In today's case, though, this song actually does happen to be done by a Christian, I'm not sure how many people know that the rapper NF is a Christian, so this is not really a reaction video per se, this is more of an analyzation of my own thoughts about this song. I think there's lots of great reaction videos on YouTube for any of the songs that I'll be talking about, with people who are much more expressive when they listen to music than I am, so that would be more interesting to watch for that. But I'm an analytical person, I like to think through things, and so that's more so what I'm going to be doing. Plus, I don't need to get copyright claimed, okay? If you are interested in looking at some further reactions on NF songs, you can check out my YouTuber friend Christopher164, I'll put a link around here somewhere, I don't have. This song is called Paralyzed, it's by NF. Right off the bat, I want to say, great vocals, he can sing, as well as rap, really well. I've heard NF before. I have to say that an emotion that I often feel when listening to NF is an emotion of despair, not my despair, but that I sense that he is very disparaged, that he is talking about things that he feels so deeply and strongly about, but he doesn't know what to do with them, or he feels very depressed. He has an album called Therapy Sessions, and it's called that for a reason, it's born out of, from what I understand, actual therapy sessions. I will say, to say to that, that even though we are Christians and we have a hope inside of us, we still can get discouraged, and that sometimes we still need help, like therapy and counseling and psychiatry, even, that's not something to feel guilty about, it's not a sin to need those things. If you need to talk to someone, you should reach out. Don't keep it to yourself. Don't keep that depression, that hurt, to yourself. Talk about it. Go to trusted people. As somebody who works for my church, I'm not a trained counselor or anything like that, but if you need to talk to someone and maybe get a referral to a counselor, I'd be happy to help you out. So first off, he talks about losing himself a lot, right? In the Course, he says, I'm paralyzed. Where are my feelings? I no longer feel things I know I should. I'm paralyzed. Where's the real me? I'm lost, and it kills me inside. I'm paralyzed. So he's feeling paralysis, that inability to move, and not just physically, but emotionally, unable to move and act upon his emotions or even feel those emotions he's supposed to have, and I think a lot of us have experienced that. A lot of us experience the paralysis of the emotions, particularly through difficult times of life. I know through my teen years, I felt that a lot. I felt like I didn't know what my emotions were, what things that I should have felt strongly about, I didn't, and things that I shouldn't have felt strongly about, I did, and so it's just a volatile time that we go through in life. We all do. There's nothing weird or wrong with you if you feel that way. It's just a thing that happens, but it's something you should talk about with people that care about you and can help you. It's not just limited to the teen years. I've experienced those things. I've experienced depression at different times in my life. I want to be careful to say that I'm not talking about a clinical diagnosed depression. I'm just talking about deep feelings of sadness and despair that I've felt at different times in my life. We're not knowing where I'm going, not feeling like God is listening, but God is listening. I found that most of the times I feel like God's not listening, and most of the times that I'm not honestly talking to him. I know I can listen if we're not honestly talking. When I say honestly talking, I don't mean just, like, we should pour out even our complaints to God. Things were frustrated, but don't stop there. Get real with God. Tell him, I don't know what to feel, I don't know where to go, and then listen to him. The problem is we're often not talking and we're often not listening. If we're talking, we're only doing talking, we're only complaining to God, but we're not sitting quietly to just hear what he has to say for us. Sometimes God comes in that still, small voice. From a musical note, this reminds me a lot of the band Red, a totally different genre of music. They're, like, hard rock, sometimes even metal, but another Christian group. But lyrically and musically, there's a lot of similarities there. There's a lot of despair and things that they end up talking about and not feeling, and then just that, the bending of the vocals and things like that. I thought it was really interesting how he says, I'm scared to live, but I'm scared to die. Aw, man, so many people have felt that. They felt like they don't know what to do with their life, they hate their life, kind of thing. So much was going wrong. You know, maybe they've even had thoughts of, like, suicide or something like that. They would be scared to go through with that. I just want to say that a lot of people have had those feelings. A lot of people. I've experienced those kinds of thoughts and feelings myself about, you know, wanting to die and things like that, you know. And I can totally relate to that, I'm scared to live, but I'm scared to die. But please, please, please, if you're having those kinds of thoughts, reach out, you know, talk about it. Reach out to a counsellor, reach out for those kinds of resources, to somebody at your local church. If you're part of my church, you could reach out to me, and I can help connect you with someone in our area who can help you with counselling stuff. But please, just don't let those feelings simmer. Talk to someone. But it also reminds me of a verse in the Bible. You might be surprised to hear similar thoughts expressed in the Bible. But the Apostle Paul, who wrote a significant part of the New Testament, actually said, in Philippians 1, verse 21 to 25, he says, For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I'm going to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I'm torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith. He's wrestling. At this point, Paul is an old man, and he's like, I'm going to heaven when I die. That's way better than this. He's basically saying he wants to leave. He wants to pass away. He also knows there's a benefit for him to be here. If we have any fear around death, we shouldn't fear death, first of all. As Christians, it means that we get to be with the Lord. If you're not a Christian, please reach out. I'd be happy to talk with you and help you through that process, but there's nothing to fear if we're a Christian then. If there's anything to fear about death, I would say it's the fear that there's people we could have reached, there's ways we could have been effective for God that we haven't been. That's the thing that I would be afraid of when I die, is that I haven't made the most of my life. I think oftentimes, when we get trapped in this despair, it's because we're thinking a lot about ourselves. A famous comedian once, I remember hearing a story about this, I'm not going to say the name because I'm not entirely sure if this story is totally accurate, but anecdotally, it's an interesting point. Basically he was going to kill himself. He was going to kill himself, and then he heard children laughing. Then he thought to himself, if I can bring a smile to people's faces, if I can make them laugh, then there's purpose and meaning to my life. He kept going. He kept living. I think more than just making people laugh or putting a smile on their face, is the truth of the gospel that gives people eternal life. There's something to live for. There's something to live for. I also thought it was interesting where he talks about, I'm underwater, but I feel like I'm on top of it. I'm at the bottom, and I don't know what the problem is. I'm in a box, but I'm the one who locked me in, suffocating, and I'm running out of oxygen. He's kind of talking about it's like a self-imposed prison of numbness, or at least that he blames himself. Don't feel guilty if you feel depression. But in some cases, now I'm not talking about clinical depression. I want to be clear here. If it's clinically diagnosed depression, that's another category here. But if we're just talking about the regular emotional depression, we often have a choice. We have a choice to look at ourself, our hurt and our problems that might be legitimate hurt and problems, or we have the opportunity to focus on God and something greater and what he's doing, something good. Right now, we're in a really, really weird place globally. Frustrating, annoying things are happening that, at the very least, can be making our lives inconvenient or boring, at worst, make it scary to live and move around and do these things. But the thing is, we can focus on that. We can focus on our limitations, the things in our life that have held us back, the things in our life that are negative. Or we can do something about them. Some cases, we can't. Some cases, we won't be able to control those limitations. But we can control, for the most part, how we feel about these things, or at least take those emotions that somebody can help us process those things and get us in a better head space where we can focus on what God is doing. I'm not saying shove down your emotions and pretend everything is butterflies and roses because it's not. It's not. And we have real hurt, real problems, and they need to be talked about. But once they've been talked about, what we focus on is what we tend to focus on. Have you ever noticed that when your family gets a new car, say you got a Toyota Corolla, you start noticing, man, so many people got Toyota Corollas recently. No, they haven't. You just started noticing them because that's been something that's been so focused on and clear in your life. Similar to that, when something bad happens like that, we focus in and we just see the negative everywhere. We think people are terrible, and then we start, our bias is confirmed because everywhere we look, we're looking for people to be terrible instead of looking for the good in people, what God is doing. Start looking for what God is doing, and I guarantee that you'll see it. It might take some time and some real effort, but you'll see it because God is working behind the scenes. Anyways, those are my thoughts on analyzing NF Paralyzed. I am looking to do more songs. I've got a good list to start with. If you guys want to suggest songs either on YouTube or Instagram, I love to hear songs you guys want me to analyze. Anyways, God bless.