Stories Behind the Songs

God of the Broken God of the Broken was written for Chelten Baptist Church’s Youth Winter Retreat back in 2009. I was excited about my first opportunity to lead worship for the sessions and equally thrilled to be collaborating with my good friend, Blake Stack, who was going to be the speaker for the weekend. We both had a real passion to give the teenagers on the retreat a glimpse into God’s heart in a way that they had, perhaps, not encountered Him before. Having wrestled with our own brokenness and constant sinfulness, we wanted them to be able to see that God loved them and welcomed him regardless of how they came to Him. We know that this would fly in the face of so many messages that kids growing up in the church were inundated with.

So often, the message is somewhere along the lines of “You need to get your life right with God. Deal with the sin you’re struggling with. Give it all to God and do your best to serve Him.” These are all perfectly valid thoughts and parts of the Christian life, but we felt that they were missing the initial encounter with Christ that would make these truths a genuine overflow of the heart, rather than simply one more thing that Christianity was telling them to do. If all you’re focused on is getting your life right with God, you are never given the chance to experience the beauty of a grace that forgives your every sin and loves you in the midst of your struggles and imperfections. This doesn’t even get into the fact that “trying to get our lives right with God” feels an awful lot like trying to earn our own sanctification. We wanted to bring them back to the only place we can really start: the fact that we are all broken due to the effects of sin on the world and our own hearts.

What is so amazing about the way that God relates to us is that he didn’t wait until we sorted ourselves out, knowing that we would never be able to do it. He died while we were still sinners so that, while we are still sinning every day, we are able to come to Him just as we are and allow His amazing grace and endless love change our hearts to be more like Him. And it is here that we see the beautiful truth: God identifies us as His own, in the very state that we’re in. We are broken, yet He is still our God, the God of the Broken. He came down to earth to live among us and live as one of us. He was tempted in every way, holds every tear in His hands and sympathizes with us in our weakness. He truly knows what it is like to live life as a broken person in a broken world and because of this, is called our sympathetic High Priest.

Many of my songs are very personal to my own experience and, because of that, are written very much in the first person. In this song, though, I wanted us to be able to sing these truths together as the body of Christ making this the only song on the album that could be considered a congregational worship song. We’ve sung it at every youth retreat since the initial one it was written for, and it’s been so humbling to see the teenagers and youth leaders alike using it to offer their own brokenness to their loving Father and ask Him to make them new. It also felt like the perfect song to start off the album since, in many ways, it encapsulates the gist of what this album is about. We are broken people living somewhere in between the redemption to come and the pain that exists now and we need to acknowledge that or we are just living deluded lives. But God invites us to ‘come as we are’ and find his healing, redemption and ultimately resurrection in what He’s done on the cross and what He’s doing in our lives every day. It is only then that we can say, out of a heart that has been genuinely changed by His grace and love: I lay my life into Your hands, it’s all for You.

Wrestling Angels ‘Wrestling Angels’ was the last song written for this album. Since this is my debut album, many of the songs were simply picked from the arsenal of over 200 songs I had amassed up until this point. This song, though, was a gem that uncovered itself at the last minute, emerging after I had already submitted my initial list of songs for the CD. I had just finished writing a song about a situation where God’s redemption was clearly seen in the here and now, and I was in a pretty good place emotionally (which normally isn’t good for my song inspiration!). Having recently been exploring music of the folk ilk, I wanted to try my hand at that feel of guitar playing and just started strumming the chords that quickly became the base of this song. The feel of the chords and the strumming style just took me very deep within myself and it became one of a few special songs that emerged simply from the emotion I was tapping into in that moment, rather than a specific situation I was going through.

Looking back on it now, I think this song might have been a reaction to the joyous celebration of the redemptive situation that preceded its writing. It was truly an incredible thing to see the Lord pull through like He did, but I also didn’t want to lose the rest of the story in our celebration. It had been 3 agonizing years of questions, heartbreak and waiting before the redemption of it all occurred and this song ended up becoming an anthem for those still stuck in the waiting. I was struck by how hard it can be to relate to God when we are still waiting for Him to answer our prayers, and the agonizing doubts of whether or not He will ever answer them in the way that we are hoping for. But if our faith doesn’t speak into the void of God’s silence, then does it really make a difference at all?

I forget where I read it, but an author I had been reading around this time made the statement that, if you are wrestling with God, at least you can’t doubt His intimacy. This thought was so striking to me, because it implied that asking the question, “God where are You?” actually acknowledges the fact that He can hear you, which implies His closeness. If we are truly honest with ourselves, in the midst of these difficult situations, we don’t need an answer as much as we need to know that God is with us. I don’t know why God allows times in our lives that are extremely difficult and I don’t know why it seems that at those exact moments, He seems the furthest from us. All I know is that walking through those situations and meeting God in valleys unveils to us parts of God’s heart that we could never understand or experience in any other situations

This song ended up being one of my most Psalm-like songs on the album and it makes me appreciate the artistic journey I’ve been on to feel the freedom to not leave the song resolved. It merely cries out to God to be near and states that sometimes overlooked, but very real truth, that “faith isn’t always easy.” I pray that this song helps us as a body of Christ become less judgmental to those who are struggling in their faith walk. Without knowing them well, we have no idea of the journey that it’s taken someone to bring them to their point of struggle. And we have no idea how God is using this particular ‘valley’ experience to bring about their ultimate sanctification. Perhaps we can just walk alongside each other in the journey and love as we see Christ loving each and every one of us. And who knows, that may be the very thing that God uses to show that someone His nearness in the midst of the pain.

Redemption Song I had written the chorus for ‘Redemption Song’ back in 2007, soon after Bekah and I got married. I was thinking a lot about what it looks like to live life in light of Eternity, and one of the main aspects of that is letting the redemption that is coming one day speak into our situations here and now. It really was an incredible truth to realize that one day, regardless of how bad things get now, everything that has been marred by sin will be wiped away and resurrected into a new and glorious life that is beyond all comparison. I wanted people to be able to hear their coming redemption calling out to them in the midst of whatever it was that they were going through and let that give them hope. And this is a hope that is not dependant on whether or not the situation gets any better. One of my pet peeves is the assuring of struggling people that Jesus is going to make their situation better, because that isn’t always the case and that can severely turn people off of God. The hope that we have is so much bigger and more beautiful than an empty promise made on behalf of a misunderstood God.

So I wrote this chorus that was catchy and said what I wanted to say in a succinct and clever way. And that was all I got. I tried various options for verses and even tried combining it with parts of other songs I had written, but nothing fit. So I left it and would pull it out and play every once in a while. It was such a bittersweet bit of music because I loved it so much, but it was missing the rest of its elusive self that would make it complete.

It was finally the Fall of 2009 that provided the inspiration for the rest of the song. Driving around, admiring the beauty of the changing seasons all around me, I was struck by the fact that, what made the leaves so beautiful was the very thing that was killing them. It immediately made me think of my favorite passage of Scripture (2Cor. 4:16-18) in which we find the truth that we do not lost heart because, though our outer shell of a body is slowly dying, we are being renewed day by day. It calls us to look at the unseen, eternal things, rather than everything around us that is so tangible. I began thinking through other examples of the eternal in our every day lives and realized that even the most difficult of situations can remind of something eternally beautiful.

But this can only come if our eyes are opened to those eternal truths disguised all around us. And we will only hear the call of our redemption, and let it impact our perspective of what is truly happening in our lives, if our ears have been opened to the deeper things. So often we are so intent on pursuing our own little dreams and desires here on earth, that we completely miss the eternal glimpses that God is attempting to unveil. I’m praying that this CD will be one of those many little opportunities for eternity to peak through the walls that we erect to protect ourselves from disappointment, and give us the freedom to rest in the assurance that one day, all will indeed be made right and whole again.

Here If I were to give ‘Here’ a purely descriptive title, it would be ‘The Worship Song for the Burnout’. There are many reasons behind the ministry burnout I experienced that led to this song, but regardless of the reasons, by the end of 2007 I was leaving a church that I had worked for part-time for the last two years, and I was empty. I had poured out my heart, my strength and my creativity to the point that I had nothing left to give when it was all said and done. It was a strange feeling to be burned out from ministry at the young age of 22 and leaving the church also meant leaving behind what I had always assumed would be a full-time worship pastor job once I graduated from college. It felt like I was taking so many steps backwards from what I felt like I should be doing with my life. I ended up leaving a seemingly perfect worship-leading gig where I was known and loved by thousands of people for a job as an Applebees waiter to try and help pay my way through my last year of college. This was a very tough first year of marriage for Bekah and I.

Needless to say, this all just felt like such an emptiness in my soul. So many things that I had found my definition and fulfillment in had been taken away, and it was by my own choosing in a decision that we were sure was the right one to make. But more than anything, I was beginning to question whether or not I was worth anything to God if I didn’t have something to give back to Him. I had spent much of the last couple of years being heavily involved in worship leading inside and outside of the church and now I felt like I was wasting the gifts He had given me. So much of our descriptors of worship are words like ‘offering’ and ‘sacrifice’, but how was I supposed to worship God when I felt like I had nothing to offer and no strength left within myself left to sacrifice?
It was in this difficult time that the Lord showed me a freeing truth that I’ve found many people in full time ministry need to know or be reminded of: We are not worth the sum total of what we can give to or do for God; He just wants us. I had spent so much time in ministry doing ‘for’ God that I had completely forgotten how to be ‘with’ God. In fact, the doing often got in the way of the being. I think it truly took me getting to the end of myself to realize that, even at the end of myself, I am still wholly valuable, loved and desired by God and I could actually find my refreshment and healing in Him. Whether or not I am involved in ministry or even in a very spiritually robust place does not make me unable to discover the beauty found at the feet of Jesus.
The Lord used this ‘Mary/Martha’ experience that I was having to slowly began and unravel what true, personal worship really looks like. I don’t want to negate any of the worship that I had led or done in the past, but I was being confronted with all of the outward things I had done that I had merely assumed was worship because they were done in the context of a worship service. On my own, away from all the noise and action, I was beginning to see God for who He is and myself for who I was, as well as who God says that I am. There was no longer this barrier between my heart and my God and I was simply able to just be in His presence without needing to perform. My heart was being changed and impacted by His glory and, in the process, spontaneous worship was beginning to overflow (hence the creation of this song). And the incredible thing is that it gave significance to worship songs that I had sung and led many times, but now understood at a deeper level. But most importantly, I had finally discovered that God is not only worthy of all worship, but able to be worshipped, regardless of the state of the worshipper.

Hindsight ‘Hindsight’ is one of the older songs on the album. I have a very distinct memory of where I was when I wrote it and it transports me back there every time I sing it. The summer of 2005, I returned home to South Africa to do an internship at my parent’s church. Every year since I was quite young, our family would head down to the beach for two weeks to the same house in a small little town right on the Indian Ocean called Leisure Bay. It was, in many ways, the one locational constant in my relatively transient lifestyle as a Missionary Kid and going down to Leisure Bay that year felt more like going home that anything I had returned to yet in South Africa.

One of the many great features of this beach are the rocks that you can climb onto relatively easily and watch the ocean crash up against them while you get a bit more of a bird’s eye view of the coastline. It was one day, in the late afternoon, that I took my guitar up onto the rocks and just began strumming the repetitive chords that flow throughout the song. As the sun was setting beautifully behind me, my heart was heavy with the knowledge that it was likely I would never see this place again. Reflecting on the many different and unexpected roads the Lord had led me on to get me to this specific moment, I had no way of knowing whether or not I would ever be able to return to this place that my heart held so dear.

I slowly began to take stock of my life and one recurring thought kept coming back to me over and over again, like the waves crashing on the shore:

“I would have never made it through, if it were not for you.”

Regardless of what I had done, or what had happened to me, the Lord seemed to have this uncanny way of always helping me through even the toughest of situations. And not only that, but He somehow kept turning hopeless situations into ways that His love was proven more true than ever, when viewed through the lenses of hindsight. As this song slowly took form, I took heart in the fact that everything situation the Lord had brought me through up until this point was one more promise that He would do it again, and I could rest in the comfort of His presence with me along every step of this journey.

I like to think of most my songs as Ebenezer stones that are erected as memorials of what the Lord has done at a certain points in my life; to aid as reminder of who God showed Himself to be in specific situations. This song is slightly different in that it has only grown more true and meaningful each time I sing it, as more and more life experiences feed into the weight of what that one repeated phrase proclaims. It seems as though each situation in life, whether good or bad, all serve to ultimately prove the faithfulness of God in new and unique ways. I look forward to the day when this life is over and I will be able to stand with all the saints and declare the full weight of God’s faithfulness displayed in and through each and every one of our lives.

Pheonix COMING SOON!

Leaving ... COMING SOON!

Window Pain COMING SOON!

Healed Back in the summer of 2008, our church was going through a series entitled “The Names of God”. It was also around this time that the powerful (and later controversial) song “Healer” was released on Hillsong’s album ‘This is Our God’. This set the stage for my processing through of my uncle’s quick decline after a 9 year battle with brain cancer. I was also finally at the place in my faith where I felt the freedom to ask some of the more honest questions that were lurking beneath the surface of my heart: What if my uncle didn’t win the battle against his cancer this time? Can we still called God a healer when he doesn’t heal? How do I make sense out of what God allows us to endure and what He spares us from?

It would have been a somewhat easy resolution to the struggle if my uncle had won the battle against his cancer. I would have been able to write a victorious song of thanks to God for all his wondrous acts on our behalf. Instead, I was left with an aunt who had lost her husband too soon with three teenage children trying to make sense of a life without the father that they loved. Trite Christian phrases that I had heard in the context of grief and loss wouldn’t suffice this time, and I knew that there had to be a way to acknowledge the pain of the separation from those we love, while still finding hope in who God is. I was trying to reconcile the faith my uncle had displayed in the face of this disease that God had allowed to ravage his body before eventually taking him.

The answer finally came as I connected all that God had been teaching me about living in the light of eternity with this drastic reminder that life is temporary. Yes we experience pain, loss, sickness and brokenness now, but God can still be called a Healer because He will one day heal and redeem it all. Christ’s death provided the way for us to live an eternity without all of the negative things that were encapsulated in my uncle’s passing and promised a beautiful reunion of us all in Christ. There was a beautiful reminder of this when my uncle passed from this sin soaked world into glory. It had rained earlier in that dry, Texan day and right after he passed on, they looked out his hospital window and saw a double rainbow. This was an extremely rare reminder that God keeps His promises and we will see my uncle Brian again.

I never set out to write a song for his funeral, it was simply an overflow of everything mentioned above. Little did I know how the Lord would use this song since that time. Every time I play it, I hear a new story about someone who has/is wrestling through the issues addressed in this song. People who have battled cancer, people with chronic pain or sickness, injuries that never fully healed … and these are only the physical issues that need healing. It doesn’t even begin to touch the emotional wounds we all need healing from. Redemption and healing are universal longings that connect us all. I feel so blessed to have been made the steward of a song like this and I pray that the Lord continues to use it to remind more people that He truly is the ultimate Healer.

Atonement COMING SOON!

Not Home COMING SOON!

Unfinished I don’t think I had ever realized how much of a perfectionist I was. As many people do, I had read the passages of Scripture that talk about who we should be as Christians and assumed that it was where I should be right now. I would muster up the motivation and try and change my behavior as best I could, to try and align myself with the ideal Christian I knew I should be. When I inevitably failed, I would pile on the guilt and shame, in the hopes that they could be some kind of motivation towards sanctification. But shame and guilt can never drive us towards holiness, they only drive us deeper into themselves.

I think one of the most beautiful things about this Christian life is that we are perpetually unfinished creations. In my perfectionist mentality, this was an exhausting reality … endless work and striving to never quite measure up. The problem a perfectionist has with process of any kind is that it is messy, never laid out in a straight line, and most of the time feels like there is no progress being made. But if we can just begin to embrace grace, we are able to discover that the Lord has us right where we need to be to get us to where He is taking us. He sees the finished work of art and knows all of the wild journeys it takes to get us there. Unfortunately, we don’t have this birds-eye view of our life to see how all of the lines, colors, shades and textures come together to form the beauty He is work out through us.

It can be a risky thing to abandon ourselves to The Artist because we no longer have control of what we will become, or what it will take to shape us into the finished artwork. Many times, the chiseling is painful, but it is necessary bring out the beauty. Each piece of the ‘old’ that is chipped away reveals an eternal piece of The Artist that is able to shine through the ‘new’ that we are becoming. As our old ways of displaying what we thought were love, grace and beauty are put to death and discarded, the truest expression of these qualities are slowly realized within our hearts. Our Artist is then able to shine through us with a beauty that will never fade.

So in those moments when beauty feels completely out of reach, we can cling to the promise that we are Unfinished. We can hold onto the promise that The Artist who has begun a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. And that in the interim, while we are all unfinished works of art, we can rest in the reassurance that this is not the final word on who we are. Each day spent under The Artist’s care is a day closer to something surpassing anything we could ever dream. We are not who we once were. We are not who we one day will be. We are, right now, in the sovereign hands of the potter who is molding us and shaping until the day when the final pieces of earth will be chipped away, and we will finally be what He had intended from the very start.