Jerry Wilson spoke to the raunchy rock 'n' roller with a heart on fire for God, MARGARET BECKER.

This confidence has not lessened her drive, however, as expressed on her new album in the song "The Hunger Stays." "For me, there is a hunger; a passionate hunger for God.

"The hunger is an itch within us that cannot be scratched in such a way that it will never need to be scratched again. That is the beauty of Christ; that the passion for Him, if we allow it, can drive us, if we are sensitive to it and if we don't try to deaden it with other things. It exists apart from our culturing it. But it's when we try to dull it and meet it with other instruments that the passion becomes diluted, because there are other things in between the passion and our conscience and our souls."

Something else on Margaret Becker's mind these days, a topic that seldom arises in discussions with contemporary artists, is the fear of God. "I think the fear of God is a respect for Him and a healthy reverence for who He is. The fear of God should motivate us, but not to get to a point where we are afraid to be honest with Him. But that is not always the case. The fact is that we're humans and we're going to fail and do some things that we feel mildly bad about. It's a tool of the devil to take our failings we think are so terrible and make us bury them, not deal with them, and not feel like God can accept us because they're so horrible. Although we still have the fear of God, the fear has now become fright and being scared and not being able to face something, which is not what the fear of God means. It means a healthy respect and a reverence, not that you are afraid to approach God, because it says in the New Testament we shouldn't be afraid of approaching God; that we should approach boldly.

"The song on the new album entitled 'Honesty,' which deals with that will, I'm sure, ruffle a few feathers of people who would rather not hear deep, dark secrets, or would rather not put God at such an accessible level. But the truth of the matter is if we hide something, or if we do not deal with something, we are crippled and we will never grow beyond that point, and that's the pity of it.

"I've already begun performing that song, and I cannot even describe the effect that it has on people, because we all have one of 'those' secrets. Everybody has one. Even if you feel like you've been forgiven 10 years ago, there's still something that haunts the majority of us as Christians. The fact of the matter is that God is not concerned with that thing. He is more concerned with your reaction to it. He is more concerned with what you do with it, and how you allow it to either hinder you or whether you allow yourself to have a more honest assessment of yourself and your need for Him. And if that's all the song does, then I'll feel like it's accomplished a great deal, because people need to be honest. They need to be honest with the Lord, and honest with themselves. Otherwise, they will be spiritually crippled."

Margaret concludes by referring to another song on the same album. "'Just Come In' was probably the hardest song I had to write on that album. That and 'Honesty', because both of them are interrelated. It deals with God's forgiveness, but on a level that I have not been able to experience until that song. To me, God's forgiveness is actually the re-realisation of His commitment to us and His love for us. We realize that when we acknowledge that He's forgiven our sin, and as far as the east is to the west, that sin has been thrown away,
as it says in Psalms.

'" Just Come In' is a picture of those two ideas, and for me, it's my new standard for God's forgiveness. It's no longer up to me to feel forever very badly about my sin after He forgives me; and it's no longer up to me to show Him I'm so depressed that I can't eat because I've sinned against Him, and even though I asked for forgiveness two days ago, I still feel so badly, and 'don't You Love me more now?' It has nothing to do with that. God's forgiveness is just Him saying, 'You know what? I knew you would do that before time ever began. I still love you. You cannot make me like you any better by browbeating yourself. Be sorry, repent, turn, try to do better this time."