Don’t You Worry Child (Swedish House Mafia)

Swedish House Mafia’s song of loss Don’t You Worry Child finds hope in heaven’s plan. A feel-good song, empty words or is there a plan for you?

Verse 1
There was a time, I used to look into my father’s eyes
In a happy home, I was a king I had a gold throne
Those days are gone, now the memories are on the wall
I hear the sounds from the places where I was born

Chorus
Up on the hill across the blue lake,
thats where I had my first heart break
I still remember how it all changed
my father said
Don’t you worry, don’t you worry child
See heaven’s got a plan for you
Don’t you worry, don’t you worry now
Yeah!

Verse 2
There was a time, I met a girl of a different kind
We ruled the world,
Thought I’ll never lose her out of sight, we were so young
I think of her now and then
Still hear the song

The song recalls happy times – the privileged life of a child and the joy of finding love. But so like so much in life, it doesn’t last – whether it’s just growing up or through our own failures, we aren’t really told. And I think that’s part of the universal appeal of the song. Swedish House Mafia’s song of loss calls out to our yearning for the innocence, peace and security of life that comes with living in good healthy relationships. And indeed, we can spend much of our time and emotional energy lamenting, searching to regain or rediscover things that we have lost.

The father encourages his child to trust heaven’s plan. It’s an individual plan, so that sounds nice to hear. And we want things to work out for the best, and that’s a good thing to want. We like life. But unless heaven actually has a plan, the language can have a kind of everything-will-work-out-in-the-end feel to it. What if ‘heaven’ i.e. God, does have a plan? (We should ascribe the plan to a personal entity; inanimate objects don’t plan anything).

See, I reckon our connection to the song, our yearnings, may run much deeper than ‘everything will work out in the end’ type encouragement. (After all, how we can we know that anyway?) What if our own stories of seeking redemption point to a much bigger story of redemption of humanity? We read something like this song in the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings: we humans lived in a happy home, as kings over the creation – we were given dominion to lovingly care for the good earth, and we lived in close communion with the one who gave us life, our heavenly father. (Genesis 1-2)

Now, we only hear the sounds of that happy home in our memories, in our own longings to be free of the hurt and free of the guilt that seems intrinsic to our experience of life. We can spend much of our lives trying to regain our happy home, but often we are thwarted by our own efforts. We want to rule the world but choosing for ourselves what is right and wrong, to be god of our own lives. The world is full of little gods trying to rule the world, resulting in all the terrible things we see people doing to each other around the world, and in our own lives. Things like lust, anger, envy.

The big idea of Christianity is that God is doing something about this self-rule. While God as rightful ruler is rightfully angry with those who ignore Him, he chooses out of His great love to mercifully save rebels from righteous judgement through Jesus, which he accomplishes by dying in our place, taking upon himself the judgement that we deserve. This is ~~heaven’s~~ God’s plan for us:

1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

As a result, Romans 5:1 tells us we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are adopted into God’s family and called his children (Galatians 3:26)! Because in Jesus you can know what God thinks of you, and because Jesus has secured your future, ~~heaven’s~~ God’s plan of salvation should lead you to worry less:

God doesn’t promise health, but he does promise hope in times of suffering; the way things are now is not as they ought to be and that one day He will make everything right (Romans 8:22-24)
God doesn’t promise wealth, but he does promise to provide what we need (Romans 8:32)
God doesn’t promise a perfect life partner, but he does promise to fix the things that make us imperfect, by making us like Jesus (Romans 8:29), who gave himself in love, at great cost to himself, for our good.

So don’t you worry, child.

—

For a brief introduction to Christianity, check out Two Ways To Live.