TobyMac Helps Listeners Make it Through Life’s Brokenness with the Hope of Eternity in “Promised Land”
“Always tryin’ to do what’s right
The straight and narrows getting tight
Don’t know how much longer I can stand
And I’m wonderin’, yeah, I’m wonderin’
Where’s my promised land?"
Grammy award winner TobyMac delivers a sobering and rawly personal anecdote on life’s wearying pilgrimage in “Promised Land”. In a song that longs for more in the days ahead, yet remains astutely relevant to the here and now, TobyMac engages feelings of overwhelm, confusion, and steady hope in the midst of life’s long and shifting trials. His genuine questioning provides the listener space to engage the very same questions inside themselves at the same time that he orients us to the comforting reality that there is more than this temporary experience for those who are in Jesus. There is joy ahead. There is peace to be had. There is wholeness and hope still on the horizon. And we will make it to that promised land one day.
LISTEN NOW: TobyMac “Promised Land” Official Music Video
Throughout life we experience a variety of challenges. These challenges can range from losing a loved one to being uncertain where dinner will come from next week. Yet no matter the circumstance, we experience the same answers to our differing questions — all resting in God’s promises, goodness, and purpose for our pain. As the rhythmic distressed electric guitar and accompanying drums rattle in solidarity throughout the song, TobyMac brings us home to heaven as he lets his heavy heart rest in a God he trusts to ultimately deliver him from the brokenness of the world.
“I won’t give up on this race
Broken but I still have faith
That this old life is all part of a plan
And I can feel it in my soul, one day I’ll stand before the throne
With nothing left but hope in these 2 hands”
Our lives won’t always seem to make sense on this side of eternity, but we have a hope that will carry us through to the moment where the pain we feel now will all be worth it when we are before God. This hope will deliver us from believing that today’s experience is the fulfillment of the glory we’ve been promised and realign us to remembering that it’s eternity with God that will hold the rest we are longing for. It’s forever with Jesus where we finally enter into the promised land.
“Promised Land” is TobyMac’s second single of 2021 and was released in September
