LAND OF THE LIVING MAGAZINE - Magazine - Page 44
SONG STORY
This is arguably my favorite song I’ve ever
written & released! I wrote this song after
coming home from preaching my heart out
at a Youth Event and afterwards hardly
anyone said a word about it. A kid got
saved that night, which should have been
all I needed to rejoice in knowing that my
message did what it was meant to do–
salvation! But apparently, I needed to get
saved too! I went home feeling
discouraged and not because I felt like I
had failed, but angry because of the lack of
encouragement. I thought to myself,
“Gosh, the South is not like this!” Further
digging my roots of resistance to a culture
that was unlike my normal. Pride comes
before a fall and I was proud and it was
time to fall.
I sat down at the piano, and sang the
entire song weeping line by line as God
began meeting my need for approval,
encouragement and affirmation.
I’m amazed by His approach at dissolving
my pride. I thought He would incite me to
sing vertical praise, that was “Himfocused” instead of “me-focused.” But
Jesus wasn’t insistent on being seen…He
was interested in seeing me. He wasn’t
threatened by my needs, He was designed
to heal them and to meet them. To shake
hands with them until they felt known.
He sang the gospel to me in a way I had
never heard before. And by the end of the
song, I was a mess…and by that I mean I
was so taken back by His love for me that I
had fallen deeply in love with Him. I was a
mess…my tears were drenching my ability
to even speak. I was so smitten and so
small at the same time. It felt like He filled
up the entire house with the scent of His
tenderness and affection.
That is true worship. We love, because He first
loved us. 1 John 4:19
Not He loves, because we first loved Him. Not
He praises us, because we first praised Him.
Our worship is a response to His love for us.
So when we’re loving ourselves or others
more than we love God, it's because we
haven’t let Him love on us.
As we sang together that night, I realized
Proximity is the perspective from stepping
into the shoes of the ones who walked with
Jesus while He was on earth.
They had read the Scriptures and heard the
stories their WHOLE lives but now the One
they were waiting for was on the scene. They
had felt the pages in their hands but it was
another thing to touch His skin.
Heaven came to earth.
The Word had become flesh and as He spoke,
the red letters were written. The words we
now search for on pages, were the words He
was speaking to the people around Him.
“In another world they won’t believe I was this
close” references those New Testament souls
who got to live with Jesus on the scene
speaking about all the future generations that
would never get to see Jesus face to face like
they did and how we would be in awe that
they got to be so close to Him.
Simultaneously, that can swing back to apply
to us as well singing back to the New
Testament souls who never got to live with
Holy Spirit as close as we do!
"You're worth every penny..." references Mary
who spends everything on Jesus by buying the
oil to anoint Him, just so He can spend
everything back on her by dying for her and
the world. It ends with a bridge that proclaims
the salvation experience after encountering
Jesus and the beauty of the promise that He
will never leave or forsake us.
This song is a fresh take on the Gospel and a
chance to receive and realize that the
proximity of Jesus is still an open
invitation for us all.
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