Tenth Avenue North, Mike Donehey Posts Video Journals That Reflect On Band's 'The Struggle'

Mike Donehey, of Tenth Avenue North, has been blogging and posting video journals that reflect on the band's new music and delve a little deeper into the meaning behind the songs, on his tumblr called, 'Seized By A Great Affection.'

Donehey is still fairly young, in his early 30s, and yet, he has a great deal of wisdom to impart on fans, all-the-while citing scripture to give weight to his views.

He explained his most recent video journal, posted about a week ago, which reflects on the song, 'Where Life WIll Never Die,' from the band's newest album, 'The Struggle,' in an interview with the people from the K-Love Fan Awards.

"You know, growing up I honestly thought Jesus wanted to ruin my good time. I felt like he was just out to rob me of pleasure. But as I've gotten older I've realized, pleasure is just a matter of perspective. If I think that this world is meant to satisfy me, then it is always gonna feel like Jesus is a buzz kill," Donehey said in the 'Where Life Will Never Die' video journal. "You say no to the temporary, you say no to clinging to a broken, fading, dying world, which is gonna leave you anyway, and grab on to [Jesus]. And so this kind of shifts my whole perspective."

During his interview with K-Love, Donehey explained that, Jesus is saying, "don't sell yourself short. Don't give in to this cheap, immediate pleasure, because if you just wait a little longer, you'll find that you have something so much better."

He refers to the pleasures of this world as "merely a reflection of the one who made [them]," in his video journal. He uses Hebrews 11 to bring this point home, which states that "we need to live as strangers in this world." In his K-Love interview he also references Psalm 16:11, "[which] says the best kind of pleasure and the longest lasting pleasure is in God's presence."

Donehey has posted video journals that reflect on other songs from the album as well, including, 'Worn,' 'Losing,' and 'The Struggle.'

In the 'Worn' video journal, he reflects saying, "When I look back on this photo album of my life, and I'm flipping through the pages, it's rarely the easy and comfortable times that God's doing good. Every time God's really doing something amazing in my heart it's when everything was falling apart around me. It's like God says to me, 'No it's not your circumstances that need to change bro, it's you.' God making my life difficult and hard is the only reason I'm this right now, this whole music thing."

In the 'Losing' video, Donehey shows his clever sense of humor. He begins the journal stating, "God is not an elephant. How do I know? I met him. Not God. An elephant. Several elephants." After telling an amusing childhood anecdote, he proceeds to explain how God is not an elephant. "An elephant never forgets, and here's something to kinda blow your mind, God forgets our sin. Psalm 103 tells us that He remembers our sin no more."

Finally, in his video reflecting upon the title track of the new album, 'The Struggle,' Donehey explains that in his travels he has come across two different kinds of people on opposite ends of the spectrum, those who are entrenched in the depth of struggles and those who are living victoriously and filled with the fire of God. His personal struggle has been to speak to both groups at once. "As I've struggled to articulate this, I would reduce it down to this simple statement that Hallelujah, we are free to struggle but we're also not struggling to be free. In other words, in Christ there is a freedom to fail and there is a freedom to change. There's forgiveness for our sin and there's liberty from our sin," he said.

Stay tuned for new video journals in the future at Mike Donehey's blog, Seized By A Great Affection.

Tags : Tenth Avenue North Mike Donehey 'The Struggle' Tumblr