These two best friends must have had plenty of
opportunities to tell one another some details about how they each felt about
his life before the Creator. So it wasn’t an accident that Geoff Moore and
Steven Curtis Chapman would write some songs together to explore this facet of their
lives, including in 1992 in Nashville when they collaborated to ask God to “Listen
to Our Hearts”. It was one track on Geoff’s band’s (The Distance) album A
Friend Like U, on which Geoff and Steven co-wrote two of its 10 tracks,
including the album’s title tune. They were musical poets, able to inspire and
motivate one another, yet also comfortable admitting that they lacked some of
the words they would have liked to have said. In doing so, they must have taken
some of their notes right out of another author’s text.
Geoff and Steven were early 30-somethings in 1992,
who had connected while looking to make careers in the Christian music business
in Nashville in the 1980s. What they wrote for “Listen…” suggests they may have
been studying together at some point, or had both independently noted something
that caught their attention. Perhaps
they were taking notes from what the apostle Paul had to say while preparing to
meet some Romans (chapter 8), or about how this ancient writer had marveled about
God’s deep well of love (Ephesians 3:17-18). That first-century Christian acknowledged
that he came up empty when trying to vocalize his feelings (Rom. 8:26-27), using
phraseology that Moore and Chapman echo in their poetry about their own
conversations with the Lord twenty centuries later. Although the specific
circumstances that motivated Geoff and Steven when they crafted “Listen to Our
Hearts” have not been confirmed, their authenticity as songwriters and as men
of faith, and their activity in other ways with their beliefs, indicate that
they were hearing something pretty clearly, even as they asked God to inspect their
insides and draw it out. Examine them and their family’s biographies, and you
will find one way that the Chapmans and Moores extend their hearts is toward
worldwide assistance for orphans and their adoption via Show Hope, an organization that
Steven and his wife founded. It’s not just talk either, for both the Moores and
the Chapmans have adopted multiple children into their own families. Their hearts evidently have been speaking even
when they haven’t been singing the words of the song they co-wrote in 1992.
If you’re uncertain how to talk to the One above, Geoff
and Steven might suggest you begin to investigate this by first asking Him to
listen to your heart, and then admit to yourself what is there. Are you OK with
Him listening and knowing what’s inside? You can’t hide it, only change it. It’s
also been said that what’s in a person’s heart comes out in his actions (James
2:14-24). He once said something about being fruitful (Matthew 12:33), and one
of his followers eventually listened and said something similar (Galatians
5:22). It’s interesting that that Galatians writer was once listening to
another voice. I just have to get better at listening to Him, and tuning out
the rest. Then, I might start to sound more like Him.
See the following two sites for biographic
information on the two composers:
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