Several years ago, I was teaching Sunday school to high school juniors and seniors at our church. While teaching, I met a young man named Andrew Stoner, who was a junior at the time. One day he said, “Mr. Eric, you have to listen to this band Switchfoot. They are amazing! I think you are going to love their music.”
I started listening and it wasn’t long before I was hooked. What really moved me was not just the music, but the lyrics. I discovered that many times the words of Jon Foreman, lead singer, were words that were already in my head. I just didn’t have the eloquence or poetry to say them in the way he did.
Now, Andrew Stoner sits in an office next to me and has worked for me for the last five years. He graduated high school, and college, then God brought us full circle. It’s not uncommon for me to run next door, in the middle of the day, to listen to a Switchfoot song with him. It just brings joy into the day.
I find that Switchfoot challenges me to be better. The lyrics cause me to grow. They lead me to think about things in ways that I might not have thought about them before. When I listen to Switchfoot’s music, it becomes more than just an experience of listening to music. It becomes an experience of learning.
Paradiem was built to help families create legacies that are built to last. It would only be fitting if I could connect my passion for Switchfoot and my passion for legacy. My hope in this monthly series is to connect the lyrics of my favorite Switchfoot songs to relevant lessons of life, learning and legacy. I hope to introduce you to some of the well known and hidden gems in the Switchfoot song library.
Dare You to Move is a song that many people know. Looking at different sources, this is Switchfoot’s most popular song. It’s most well known for being featured in the movie A Walk to Remember.
There is a reason it’s one of their top songs. It is a song almost anyone can relate to. As you look closely at the lyrics, you will find this idea that we are capable of more than we realize and too often we sell ourselves short. Let’s start with the chorus:
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
How many times have I done something I wished I could change; something I wished I could pretend never happened? I would say to myself, “I cannot believe I made that mistake!” I’m left sitting in the consequences thinking, “I’m stuck. This is it. This is who I am.” I begin to let that moment define me.
How do I overcome wrong behavior or making wrong choices? Can I move forward and act like, “today never happened before?” This is what God wants to speak to me. He wants to say, “Look, forget that. I’ve forgiven you. It’s over. I’m daring you to move on.”
The second verse begins to explore the tension and resistance of moving forward.
Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be
Who God created me to be sits on the other side of tension and resistance. Sometimes when I run up against resistance, my brain says, “I’m getting uncomfortable. I just want to stop.”
What I need, is not what’s comfortable. I need to run into the resistance. I need to run into the tension. I need to go past my doubts. If I stop short, then I miss out on realizing my true potential.
This potential and its blessings are expressed beautifully in the last verse.
Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here.
What I can fail to realize is that God has placed my greatest redemptions within my greatest failures. I am sitting inside of His story. If I can’t see this for myself, all I have to do is look at the life of King David. He had an affair with a woman; then had her husband murdered. Eventually, David reached a point of repentance and sought forgiveness.
Ultimately, God calls David a man after his own heart, because God had a story to tell through David. The story is about David’s righteousness as much as it is about his failures.
What story is God writing inside of you that you haven’t finished? Is it because you’ve hit resistance? Have you denied yourself the forgiveness that God wants for you? He wants to write that redemption story. Will you let Him?
Dare You to Move pushes me to move past my own failures, to move into who God has made me to be and see my failures for the redemption story that they are. Does it mean that I won’t face consequences? No, but God’s redemption is greater than anything we could ever do to move away from Him. I’m reminded of that every time I listen to Switchfoot and Dare You to Move.