For some reason I love listening to spirituals...or "exile" types of songs.  I know that as a middle class white boy I don't have much understanding of  what it means to be oppressed and long for a change, especially during the Civil Rights struggle represented in these videos, BUT as a desperate seeker of God and follower of Jesus Christ I join with all the exiles in longing for Home.  Throughout the biblical narrative, ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, from Abraham to the Israelites in Babylon, to Jesus with no place to call home, to you and me...God's People have been exiles in a foreign land, wandering wherever He leads, constantly longing for Home. Longing for His Change...for His Kingdom...to Come!  
1 Peter 2:11-12 speaks to this directly when it says, "1Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers (exiles) in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

As exiles, strangers, and aliens in a foreign land, all of our prayers are for a change to come.  We have a hope however, that when we walk and talk with Him now, that we experience Home just a little, and in that experience that Change begins to come..."Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven".


Let me know if you identify with this genre as much as I do.