It’s my nightly ritual. Drink a cup of tea, listen to some melancholic music, and write away. Usually, the music is just background noise. Yet, tonight, it was much more.

As I sat and paused for a moment, I listened to the lyrics of City and Colour’s “The Golden State,” and began to recognize a hidden message that lately has been on my heart.

Why’s everyone still singing about California?
Haven’t we heard enough about the Golden State?
And people still follow them dreams to sweet California
And from time to time I pass on by, but I will never stay
No, I will never stay

Sure there are beautiful people, in the city of lost angels
They’re living like they’re kings and queens, from some royal age
But fortune and fame won’t save you when California
Is wiped out by the ring of fire or a great earthquake

California, it’s the Golden State, it’s the state where dreams are made, where young stars are born, and where discovered gold sent thousands traveling out west to this state of promise.

As I listened to City and Colour’s song, I began to recognize something. California is a metaphor for the new job, the relationship, the materialistic desires, the fill in the blank.
But fortune and fame won’t save you when California is wiped out by the ring of fire

I’ll replace these metaphorical lyrics with something like this:
But fortune and circumstances won’t fill you with joy, won’t change you and won’t save you

We look to the promise, The Golden State(representative of whatever it may be in your life), where there is a future filled with gold and success,  and we begin to focus on the fact that once we have these things or once we have finally arrived in California, we will be “saved,” and satisfied.

It correlates with a message I heard this past week entitled “Only Jesus.”

With all the promotions and commotions, there is emptiness. We are looking at things to complete us. And then, we are empty. If I put on the fesad, I’ll be completely full, but that isn’t the truth. We are looking for love in the wrong places. Jesus is the only one who is full. The oil(the gold) is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost fills our empty vessels.
 -Amado Huizar

We will keep trekking through life, we will keep singing about California, yet we will never be satisfied.

In the song “The Golden State,” he sings

And people still follow them dreams to sweet California
And from time to time I pass on by, but I will never stay

He will not stay because he longs for more, he longs to “see the leaves change, and the snowflakes falling and the wind whistling through the pines.” California (a representation of our personal dreams and desires) will not complete us and satisfy that deep longing within. There is something that has to get a hold of us that makes us recognize that Jesus is the only one who satisfies.

I realize I am stretching these lyrics and am metaphorically turning them into something that they really aren’t, but when listening to the song, these were the thoughts that begin to enter my mind. You see, there is something that has to get a hold of our spirits that makes us long for more than the temporal.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” -C.S. Lewis

Why is everyone still singing about California?  There’s another world I was made for. And, while God has given me the gift of the Holy Ghost, and has given me an inevitable joy, I won’t be fully satisfied until I meet Him in those streets of gold. This golden state is just my temporary home.