The Struggle

When we spoke with Tenth Avenue North lead singer/songwriter Mike Donehey in 2012, they hadn't yet settled on a title for their third album, which ended up being named after this song, as much of it deals with the problems Christians face that are not always talked about. When we brought up how social problems are thought of differently in the church, Mike said: "Maybe that's something that I hope to communicate in our songs. I actually wrote a song for our next record called 'The Struggle,' which basically says, 'Hallelujah, we are struggle, we're not struggling to be free.' And a lot of times it's almost like the church doesn't give people permission to struggle with things. Even though in the Scriptures we're called Israel. We've been grafted in Israel. Israel means 'Struggles with God' or 'Wrestles with God.' And a lot of my songwriting comes out of the struggle between what I believe is God's truth and then where my heart's at and how there's always a collision process that takes place of the truth trying to win out over my emotions. And my emotions having to meld to what truth says. And so it's usually a big inspiration where the songs come from."