All My Hope -- David Crowder and Ed Cash

 

He recounts that it was a most unusual party, with a theme that resonated very well with a song he and his friend were preparing to introduce. That’s how David Crowder remembers “All My Hope” and a prodigal party to which he was invited one day in the 2016/2017 period (perhaps the scenes from the party looked a little like the one shown here in this image of a J.J. Tissot late 19^th Century painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son). How many people have parties for convicts released from prison? How many convicts have given themselves to a new life, walking in a totally different and new direction because they’ve seen the consequences of hedonism? David Crowder and Ed Cash can probably name at least one, now that they’ve observed or heard about this one prodigal that gave such potent life to the lyrics they’d shaped into a song. His name was Wilson, and though he had lived in despair and had then felt the exhilaration of physical freedom after decades of incarceration, his redemptive story is not unique. His life’s a metaphor. God didn’t come to die and rise again for people who were already in good shape – all humanity has need of Him, and we’re all prisoners without Him.  

 

David Crowder says he was traveling (place unnamed) and some friends coaxed him to go to the party, to help provide the celebratory musical environment for the event. David’s curiosity was piqued, once he heard the story about the guest of honor and realized that some of his and Ed’s lyrics for ‘All My Hope’ were so fitting for the occasion. This fellow named Wilson was ‘no stranger to prison’ (v. 2 of the song), and he’d worn real ‘shackles and chains’. Something in his prison life had stared him in the face, however – could it have been something like Prison Fellowship (founded by Chuck Colson), which has worked for over 40 years (since 1976) to help fellows like Wilson experience hope in a new direction? David and Ed, however, don’t provide those details. Instead, their focus is on the work that God does on a person…’yesterday’s gone’ (chorus) they write, a recognition that the fresh start is real in that person’s life who reaches out to Him for redemption. Being ‘forgiven’ and ‘washed by the blood’ (chorus) is that ‘salvific action of the one and only son of God’ (David’s words in the video interview). You can be a ‘prodigal returned’ (v.1), just like the once-profligate son (Luke 15:11-32). An amazing thing, isn’t it, to have the guiltless, divine, and eternal God do something like this! David recounts that he’d never heard people sing and rejoice with such energy, as he did at that party. Perhaps that’s because we rarely have such a stark view of someone’s body that has been in a ditch, covered with filth, only to see that same person lifted out of the muck and cleansed to a spot-free condition. This person has ‘been to the river’, and ‘felt fire from above’, and is ‘held by the Savior’ (v.1). That’s the lens through which God sees all those He made in His image – His creation, with self-inflicted wounds, and covered with grime that threatens to infect our insides and kill us with gangrene-like effect. He’s there with the cleansing agent – Himself.  

 

We’re all reclamation projects. Fresh Start was a ministry that had real impact where I live, initiated by a now-departed Christian sister to reclaim people for God’s original purposes for them, and based on what one of the first century’s apostles said. (Thank you, Candace Strother for helping others get in touch with 2 Corinthians 5:17!) Her efforts still echo today, and there may be other Wilsons that you know that help keep you grounded in how rescue happens, and what it looks like. It’s really not a ‘how’, but a ‘who’, right? The who is Jesus. That’s what David Crowder and Ed Cash want us to tell others – it’s ALL about Him, in big capital, italicized letters. ALL My Hope emanates from Him. Nothing can shake what He’s accomplished for you and me.   

 

The song story in brief form is found in this article: All My Hope - Wikipedia

See and watch/hear the more complete story here also, and hear a really rich rendition of the song: Behind The Song: Crowder Shares The Heart Behind His Single “All My Hope (feat. Tauren Wells)” | Freeccm.com

 

See link here for image information, including public domain status: File:Brooklyn Museum - The Return of the Prodigal Son (Le retour de l'enfant prodigue) - James Tissot.jpg - Wikimedia Commons . This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.

 

See link here if you want to know more about how a convicted prisoner’s life can be transformed for Christ: Prison Fellowship